


The Greater Evil

by Cats_and_Crows



Series: Chronicles of the Coven [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Minor Dobby Bashing, Minor Flitwick Bashing, Minor Hagrid Bashing, Minor Lupin Bashing, Minor McGonagall Bashing, Minor Slughorn Bashing, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-12 21:35:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 25
Words: 33,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28892250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cats_and_Crows/pseuds/Cats_and_Crows
Summary: Seven witches and wizards travel back in time to aid younger versions of themselves and their families. This time around Voldemort will face a more powerful and practical septet armed with decades of experience and knowledge of future events.
Relationships: Alice Longbottom/Frank Longbottom, Andromeda Black Tonks/Ted Tonks, Apolline Delacour/Monsieur Delacour, Arthur Weasley/Molly Weasley, Dan Granger/Emma Granger, Fleur Delacour/Ginny Weasley, Fleur Delacour/Harry Potter, Fleur Delacour/Hermione Granger, Fleur Delacour/Luna Lovegood, Fleur Delacour/Neville Longbottom, Fleur Delacour/Nymphadora Tonks, Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, Harry Potter/Nymphadora Tonks, Hermione Granger/Ginny Weasley, Hermione Granger/Harry Potter, Hermione Granger/Luna Lovegood, Hermione Granger/Neville Longbottom, Hermione Granger/Nymphadora Tonks, James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Luna Lovegood/Ginny Weasley, Luna Lovegood/Harry Potter, Luna Lovegood/Nymphadora Tonks, Neville Longbottom/Ginny Weasley, Neville Longbottom/Harry Potter, Neville Longbottom/Luna Lovegood, Neville Longbottom/Nymphadora Tonks, Nymphadora Tonks/Ginny Weasley, Pandora Lovegood/Xenophilius Lovegood
Series: Chronicles of the Coven [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1915099
Comments: 39
Kudos: 170





	1. I Carry With Me All My Things

**Author's Note:**

> AN - Inspired by "Death's Champion" by Bigfan22, "Back to the Beginning" by burnable, "A Brand New Start" by faewm, "Double Back" by Methos2523, "The Death Knights" by ZombiePinUp and probably a dozen other amazing tales. I reread this story every time I resume working on it. This helps me catch grammar, spelling, and plot errors but does have the drawback of refreshing this story without adding more content and for that I'll apologize in advance. I may never respond to any of your comments but I do read them and try to address any concerns as well as consider any suggestions so please let me know what you are thinking. 
> 
> Rowling is a fine writer who created a fantastic world that is easily one of the best sandboxes to play in. I greatly respect her creativity but also feel she falls somewhat short when it comes to consequences, consistency, and implications with her universe. JK didn't appear to apply research into how governments, schools, or even sports work and tends to just make sweeping changes and statements at the drop of a hat while occasionally trying to retroactively explain away any errors with those impulsive earlier decisions. I'll try to stick to her decrees but make no promises when some of them are just plain dumb. My goal is to address as many as I can with a humorous twist that the coven can exploit.
> 
> Rowling is just one person and was bound to miss things that weren't involved in the major plot points. So please note that I personally blame whoever her proofreaders were just as much if not slightly more so than Rowling herself. These were people whose job was to catch these kind of things before publication. Granted they probably felt they were to focus more on grammar and spelling errors but they still could have at least inquired about some of her more questionable decisions that JK probably didn't even realize. I genuinely believe if they had done this just a little bit better and addressed a few of her slip-ups before they had entered circulation I wouldn't be posting this rant and this story wouldn't be bashing nearly as many characters as it does. Hence why I value your input so highly and will either immediately correct something if it is an honest mistake or try to clarify upon it later on if it was intentional.

The day was dim and the night would be cold. Seven hours wasn't a lot of time to accomplish everything they wanted to do but it was all they had as the coven had gone back as much as they could. In seven hours Voldemort would attack the Potters but this time they would be far more prepared for the bastard and hopefully spare a lot of unnecessary pain and suffering.

The first roadblock came when they arrived at Godric's Hollow. They stumbled across some impressive charmwork thanks to Lily Potter. Despite knowing exactly where the Potters were the coven hadn't technically been let in on the secret and were thus prevented from getting anywhere near them. The closest they could get was about three city blocks away before an invisible barrier stopped anyone that was looking for them. This modified Fidelius was exceptionally powerful and even someone who had been let in on the secret could only bring themselves as the barrier would halt any guests they may bring as well as prevent them from being followed. Only the secret keeper could bring someone else, too bad they had trusted that fucking rat.

Even a patronus couldn't reach them. They attempted a few mundane methods such as simply throwing stones at the house but they would veer off at the last moment and the Potters didn't even notice them. James and Lily were practically on their own little world and frankly the coven were wondering just how long they intended to stay in isolation. Were they planning on spending the whole time till Harry entered Hogwarts in this meager cottage? Were they even planning on Harry eventually going to school? Did it occur to them to leave the country? Hopefully they would have answers tonight.

The charms wouldn't wear off until either the secret or the secret keeper were no more. This time around the coven was going to try killing Peter. He had already shared what he knew with his master days ago and by now was probably safely hiding in one of Voldemort's strongholds. They had contingency plans for their contingency plans but none of them were capable of dealing with Voldemort and his horcruxes within the short amount of time before he strikes. If they captured Pettigrew they could in theory drag him through the protections but their was still the concern of any unseen protections closer to their home. What they wouldn't give for even one extra day.

It was time they didn't have but luckily they did have the numbers to at least start with the more important tasks. With the Potters being out of reach at the moment the coven suddenly had seven different ideas on what was a priority. The amount of effort to accomplish these tasks varied individually but they could all be finished with at least half an hour to spare before needing to return here so they could deal with Voldemort together. As of right now they knew when and where he was going to strike and the plan was to intercept him before he reached the safety of the Fidelius barriers.

There was still some debate on how much to include Albus Dumbledore in with. He wasn't a megalomaniac, he was just dangerously delusional with his obsession involving the redemption of his enemies and his apathy towards his own allies. The old headmaster was somewhat predictable and could be steered in a useful direction if presented with the right information. Considering how close he kept his own intelligence and what that had cost people the last time around it seemed turnabout was fairplay. Dumbledore was reckless with his own life and those that were supposed to be under his protection. He always preferred inaction and would simply allow his reputation to do the heavy lifting rather than get his own hands dirty. Such lack of action was a surprisingly good amount of protection for himself whenever something didn't quite turn out the way it was suppose to.

As of now, they were nobodies. Dumbledore might help them but he was just as likely to try and lock them away if only to remove them from the board. The man needed absolute control of somebody before he would consider them an ally at which point he would casually sacrifice them for whatever short term scheme he was involved in at the moment. Three out of every five members of his Order of the Phoenix died within their first year and roughly half that remained died sometime during their second. The only people he truly kept safe were those he felt were still working towards their redemption. Even Voldemort had a better survival rate for his followers.

For these reasons they would keep him out of the loop at least for tonight. His actions the first time around were suspect as all hell and depending on how similar they were the coven might just point him in the direction of the Gaunt Shack now and let the horcrux deal with him much earlier. They still needed to tear down his image as the next coming of Merlin as Dumbledore had caused them plenty of heartache even after his death. It had taken them several years to see it so they couldn't exactly blame the general populace for it going unnoticed. Harry and Ginny had even named one of their kids after the son of a bitch though they were incredibly grateful that their secondborn eventually changed his name to Cedric Colin once he learned more about his original namesake.

Hermione's priority was by far the easiest and least time-consuming. It was a slightly irrational need but wouldn't take much effort. Mainly it was just preventing her from completely focusing on the other tasks at hand. Thus she reluctantly agreed to stay behind while the others completed their goals. She would poke and prod at the Fidelius trying to slip something past it if for no other reason than to at least warn the Potters. Once the first one of the other six returned Hermione would go off and quickly finish her errand that shouldn't take longer than twenty minutes but someone needed to stay in Godric's Hollow just in case and she was the obvious candidate. One by one they gently kissed her for luck before apparating away to go about their individual missions. Hermione turned back to the invisible barrier and reached out her magical senses trying to find a weakness or loophole that would allow her to get past them but everytime she came across an idea it seemed that Lily Potter had thought of it and had taken preventative measures. Honestly if they had just chosen practically anyone else as their secret keeper they would be perfectly safe. She could understand the paranoia as many of Voldemort's supporters walked openly these days but there should be some means of getting in touch with them. She had a small amount of Felix Felicis but she was loath to use her limited supply now as it would fade by the time Voldemort arrived and she knew better than to take two doses on the same day plus Hermione wanted to save some for the Potters. With the way things were going Hermione had a feeling they would need it more than she would.


	2. Dora's Operation

Dora constantly altered her appearance to go about her plans. In Diagon Alley she looked the part of one of Dumbledore's followers while in Knockturn she could easily be mistaken for a death eater. While she was mainly looking for her cousin Sirius that didn't stop her from spreading her story to all that would listen.

She knew that nobody would believe Peter Pettigrew as the betrayer until after he was openly exposed. The little bastard had perfected the art of appearing gentle and harmless. Being a part of Voldemort's schemes allowed him to go about undetected as he could subtly shift blame to someone and than arrange for someone else that they had recently quarreled with to be the next victim. Sirius suspected Remus, Remus suspected Sirius, James suspected everyone who wasn't a Marauder. All the while Wormtail was most likely laughing at his "friends" and their ignorance.

The best she could hope for now was to call their bluff. Dora let everyone know that the Potters had switched secret keepers in order to throw off Voldemort. More importantly though she let everyone know that Voldemort was aware of the ruse. Order members were now scrambling to find both Peter and Sirius to confirm her claims while the death eaters were now targeting Pettigrew. Voldemort was at least smart enough not to tell his rank and file that he already had Peter's allegiance and thus several of his followers were in a mad dash to capture the supposed weak-link in Dumbledore's forces. Voldemort hadn't been subtle with his desire to go after the Potters or the Longbottoms as they were one of the few who had survived him on multiple occasions and he tended to take such things personally.

Nine bars, three cafes, and an inn later it seemed every magical in the U.K. was aware of the prank that the Potters had attempted on the dark lord. Each location she changed her appearance, clothing, and alias. She needed to keep up the facade that the switch was common knowledge until it actually became common knowledge. Dora had to grit her teeth when speaking of Peter as she couldn't yet reveal he was a willing accomplice without sounding insane. He was just too friendly for anyone that apparently knew him to be a traitor. Peter's betrayal may have started because of a combination of threats and torture but he had been presented with countless opportunities to safely escape Voldemort's clutches. He could have easily told the other marauders that he had been subjected to the Cruciatus and had unwillingly slipped intelligence to Voldemort. Nobody would have blamed him and the Order would have gladly provided protection to him and his mother. Dora had no sympathy for him at this point as his whole situation could have been resolved if he had simply asked his friends for help.

Luckily, the Order members at least realized Peter wouldn't be able to withstand the pain that Voldemort was capable of inflicting and would quickly crack if captured. Despite the popular rumor to the contrary torture was indeed a viable means of extracting a secret from it's keeper and Voldemort commanded several experts in the field. Hell even the Imperius could do the trick if you knew what you were doing. The coven needed everyone to know just how vulnerable the Potters were as she knew for a fact they would be attacked within hours. Hopefully someone who had been let in on the secret and they could at least evacuate before Voldemort arrived. It would be so much easier for them to deal with Voldemort if they didn't have to worry about protecting the Potters at the same time.

There was still no luck in finding Peter or Sirius but she did eventually find Remus in the absolute shadiest of the dive bars she visited. He stood out like a beacon against the heavy criminal element. Despite being a werewolf Remus the man was the most gentle person she had ever met. He was more timid than even Wormtail and absolutely full of self-loathing. That was something they were going to have to work on this time around. Dumbledore had thrown him into the deep end to try and recruit various werewolf packs despite being grossly under qualified for such a task. Even being sent on this fool's errand did nothing to diminish his loyalty to Dumbledore and that fanaticism was the first thing that would have to go.

Dora tentatively addressed him as "Moony" and promised to explain everything later. Time was of the essence and the coven only wanted to explain everything once. In the morning they would share who they were with those that managed to survive tonight. He had been let in on the secret when Dumbledore had him read from a scrap piece of parchment detailing the Potter's hiding place. Unfortunately, he was no longer in possession of the paper and thanks to Lily's protections he couldn't bring anyone with him. Dora let him know that Peter was already compromised while keeping it vague as Remus wasn't quite ready to believe Pettigrew would willingly give up his friends just yet. She also informed him that Voldemort planned to attack soon before giving him a magical arsenal large enough to level a city block and enough charms to punch through the Anti-Apparition wards that Voldemort was going to use. Remus was still skeptical but Dora knew just how to press his buttons and address his concerns. She gave him enough time to head off somewhere and safely test the arsenal in order for him to confirm it was what she said it was while still being able to make it to the Potters in Godric's Hollow. He quickly ran off to help his friends.

She didn't bother informing him that the coven could treat his furry little problem as he wasn't likely to believe her and the process would be both expensive and time consuming. Even with all the coven's advancements it just wasn't practical to treat him tonight. The full moon was days away so he was perfectly fine for the moment. They had fourteen different means of preventing someone from catching lycanthropy in the first place but only two to treat someone who was already infected. The first was long and painful like chemotherapy on steroids as the patient would be on a potion regiment for seven whole years and during that time they would have to use magical transportation to constantly keep themselves on the other side of the planet as the moon. It essentially starved the wolf and completely throws off their internal rhythm, most patients seem to age far more than the seven years the treatment took. The second was much quicker but far more risky as it required rendering the werewolf that infected the patient into an ointment that would have to be applied to cover their entire body while they were in their wolf form. There was no doubt the second method would be classified as "Dark" due the mandatory sacrifice of a sentient being involved even if it was a werewolf not to mention the prerequisite of getting up close and personal with a werewolf when they were at their most dangerous. One way or another, Remus wasn't going to be able to continue using the werewolf card for his pity parties. Dora was curious what he would be like as last time around he had died decades before either treatment had been discovered. She checked her watch and realized she should probably head back to Godric's Hollow.


	3. Fleur's Undertaking

Fleur wanted to thin the herd out just a bit. Right now Voldemort was resting in preparation for his assault on Godric's Hollow. It was unlikely she could get to him personally but his supporters were still monitoring the Taboo. Even if Voldemort did personally make an appearance she was quite capable of at least fighting him to a stand still especially with her stacking the deck against him.

All it took was to say his name anywhere in the country and he was instantly alerted. He would then quickly appear at the location and slaughter whoever was speaking of him along with anyone nearby. People quickly learned not to use his name and would use such stupid codephrases as "You-Know-Who" or "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named." Voldemort was capable of punching through most wards so people would use such phrasing even in their own homes. None of the dark lords or ladies that had followed Voldemort used such methods because there was one glaring flaw with it. You were ridiculously vulnerable to being ambushed.

Unfortunately, it was unlikely he would respond to such calls tonight in person. She set-up an isolated location and prepared it to go boom. It was an out of the way meth lab in the middle of nowhere. In the old timeline she knew the place would keep cranking out product for another three decades before an accidental fire destroyed it along with everyone inside. The mundanes wouldn't find anything odd about the place spontaneously combusting and the magicals of the time weren't informed enough to know about the potential danger. It was perfect for her needs. Fleur knew she wouldn't be able to bait death eaters all night as they were likely to eventually catch on but she wasn't going to stop until they failed to appear.

She nearly revealed herself laughing when the death eaters that appeared mistook the location for a potion lab and quickly summoned reinforcements to loot everything. Her first trap killed well over a dozen though she didn't recognize any of them. Just under half of them didn't even appear to be out of their teens and she deduced that this was probably the first run for most of them as none of the dead wore Voldemort's mark. Good riddance to bad rubbage. Unlike Dumbledore, Fleur didn't give her enemy's deaths a second thought. She had just saved tangible lives, not something as subjective as "redemption" or second and third chances for wouldbe murderers. Every single member of the coven cared more for the victim's wellbeing than reforming the perpetrators. 

Her second location was in the Forbidden Forest near Aragog's lair. She had slipped on a suit of basilisk skin armor and thus the acromantulas left her alone for now. Aragog himself wasn't so bad but his children and his children's children were nightmares that would eventually have to be removed. The Forbidden Forest didn't have enough food to support an entire colony and thus they were constantly forced to expand their territory. Aragog left Hogwarts alone out of respect for Hagrid. His children shared no such loyalty and would eventually swarm the castle at the first opportunity. Feeding a few "prominent members of magical society" to the colony now should drag the Ministry to take immediate action. Once again she set her traps and spoke Voldemort's name though this time she recognized three of the four sent to deal with her. Avery, Jugson, and Selwyn. The forth was a woman she was entirely clueless about but all four of them were in for a rough night as she easily dispatched them before throwing them over to the nearby spiders and apparating away.

The third location was just outside the cave Voldemort had hidden Slytherin's locket. Fleur knew that it was no longer there but Voldemort didn't and she figured this was an ideal location as somebody should still make an appearance. She was easily three times as meticulous with her prepwork on this location as the other two because even someone as dumb as a death eater might realize this was an ambush beforehand at this point. Fleur briefly considered calling one of the others just in case but even if they were done with their individual tasks they were all needed at Godric's Hollow as soon as possible. It was actually anticlimactic as Fleur spent nearly an hour preparing the site and nobody appeared despite waiting over ten minutes. She sighed as her third trap failed to catch anyone and calmly went about modifying her spellwork to go off the next time someone brandishing the dark mark got close. Fleur didn't want an innocent bystander to kill themselves as the location still got a handful of mundane visitors every year or so as it wasn't particular far from civilization and drifters would occasional camp nearby.

Just to be sure she tried two more locations and even revisited the first and second trap but failed to lure out anymore of Voldemort's followers. Fleur thought about it for a moment and realized she had killed more of his supporters within the last two hours than the aurors had in the last two years. Additionally, she hadn't let anyone escape or bothered to capture anyone alive so the death eaters were probably just taking a step back and reviewing their strategy as Fleur had ruthlessly exploited a glaring weakness and crippled them greater than Dumbledore ever did. She would make sure to bring some of the others when she tried again tomorrow. Even with Voldemort's "defeat" tonight the Taboo had taken a few weeks for the Ministry to tear down and during that time a few of his more fanatical followers had kept the fear of his name alive.

Reluctantly, Fleur returned to Godric's Hollow once it became obvious she wasn't going to be able to catch more death eaters tonight. She had hoped to kill either Malfoy or the Lestranges as they were the ones that caused the most problems even after their master's defeat but apparently Fleur just wasn't that lucky. Both families had the resources to bribe their way out of any real punishment and were quite likely to cause them grief down the road if not dealt with.

As an afterthought Fleur went to a payphone and contacted her father. He was quite surprised and agitated on how a stranger had somehow gotten a hold of his number as she wasn't willing to reveal her true relationship over the phone. Instead Fleur used a code phrase that he had taught her and his attitude changed immediately. Her father was still skeptical but after a few minutes of conversation agreed to get on a plane. Fleur would pick him up at the airport in the morning and explain everything. The entire coven had already decided on not hiding anything from their parents and include them in on their efforts to get things right this time. Eventually they would reveal their origins to their younger selves once they finished their schooling. Fleur pondered if her younger self would be involved with any of the same people or if she would be with someone else entirely. The thought amused her as she resumed her patrol of Godric's Hollow. Despite knowing the route Voldemort had taken the first time the coven were playing it safe by monitoring all potential points of access and hopefully stop him before he slipped past the protective barrier.


	4. Ginny's Chore

Ginny was nervous as she went back to the home she had grown up in. She could feel the wards scanning her and eventually letting her pass. Spending ones formative years in this household meant Ginny was more accustomed to having to repeat herself than the other coven members. It would save time and effort to just lay everything on the table for her parents now.

The Burrow had originally been built with a strong foundation but the person who expanded upon it knew almost nothing of architecture or home defense and had haphazardly thrown everything together in a horrifying manner that was an automatic violation of the Statute if a mundane ever saw the damn thing. It would take her all night to bring the house up to code and she wanted to have everything ready just in case everyone needed a safe location to fallback on. The Weasleys may have been in Dumbledore's camp but Ginny had no doubt that would change once her parents learned exactly how much that would cost them.

She took on the appearance of someone from the Ministry so that her parents would talk to her alone. Ginny was brutally honest and more than a little vulgar with sharing the details once she had confirmed her siblings weren't listening in on them. At first her parents didn't believe her until she revealed things she otherwise shouldn't know before casually pointing to the clock and confirming that it recognized her as another Ginerva Molly Weasley. Her mother was openly sobbing now from the tales from the future, how she had outlived half her children and even a grandchild before eventually dying from a heart attack. Her father wasn't doing much better as he wore a stunned expression due to having difficulty coming to grips with just how bleak everything would have been if she hadn't come back.

Despite his reservations, she could tell he was proud of her. Voldemort may be the scariest son of a bitch right now but Ginny assured her parents he was an outright amateur when compared to those who came after him and learned from his mistakes. Ginny calmly pointed out how easily Dumbledore could have dealt with Voldemort years ago but instead kept him around as the bad guy to scare the good guys into his corner. Dumbledore knew most of his secrets including that Voldemort framed another student for murder during his Hogwarts days yet did nothing to clear Hagrid's name even though it would be child's play at this point. She handed her parents a list of the names she wanted to allow access through the wards and to prepare for the possibility of people turning up in the middle of the night fleeing from a battle.

Her father dutifully added the listed names and was about to remove Dumbledore when Ginny warned him such an action might draw his attention if done for seemingly no reason. It was a calculated risk but Ginny felt it was safer to remove him once a few of his more shady decisions were revealed to the public as they would be able to justify keeping him away at that point. Dumbledore wasn't evil, he was just an idiot that allowed evil to thrive. Her mother made an emergency trip to the market and returned with enough food to feed everyone on Ginny's list for the next month at least. Ginny discreetly left a pouch with a thousand galleons in her parent's room to cover the expense and then some before restructuring the entire house. Not only did the coven still have a decent amount of coin but they had no qualms about exploiting their knowledge of the future to enlarge their fortunes.

Hours later and the Burrow looked entirely different. It was now up to code and completely structurally sound. A perfect mix of mundane and magical. Ten bedrooms, four bathrooms, a library and a four car garage were the tip of the iceberg as she made the conscious effort to be just slightly better than the home the Malfoys had eventually been forced to move into when their manor had been destroyed by vengeful muggleborns after the war. Nobody else would get it but the rest of the coven would find it absolutely hilarious. Ginny had also upgraded the security to the point of paranoia as she felt it was better to have the protections and not need it than to need it and not have it. Later on she would instruct her father on how to improve upon it even further as Ginny herself was slightly limited in what defenses she could provide as she didn't own the property and the truly impressive charms that she had access to required ownership before casting.

Right now she was simply exhausted. Normally she would have done this much slower and with help from at least two others but the coven didn't have the luxury of time and Ginny wanted the Burrow ready as soon as possible even if it burned her out for a while. The safety net it provided them was more than a fair trade in Ginny's mind. She needed sleep in order to be at the top of her game tonight. Ginny laid down on the couch in the library before telling her parents to wake her an hour before Voldemort was to attack the Potters. She had quickly placed a Disillusionment charm on the part of the Weasley clock that was attuned to her on the off-chance people arrived at The Burrow before she woke. Ginny proceeded to make herself comfortable and drifted off to catch a few hours of rest.

It had been a few years since Ginny had been in a proper scrap and even longer since she had advance warning it was going to happen. Even though Voldemort was only a small threat to the coven themselves he was still quite capable of doing a lot of harm to their loved ones and they knew better than to underestimate him. Whatever danger he posed would only be magnified if they failed to take him seriously. Ginny had to resort to occlumency to take the edge off her nerves enough to relax as her mind was otherwise swarmed with things she might have overlooked. Everything was going relatively smoothly and the coven had long ago learned to be skeptical of something that appeared too easy.

Ginny was eventually awoken by her parents when young Harry and Lily Potter arrived at the Burrow. Apparently, Remus had managed to reach them in time to get them to evacuate but stayed behind with James to ambush Voldemort. Ginny could only assume that idea was entirely James as every story the coven had heard about the man said he never backed down from a threat to his friends or family. The Fidelius was still active because it would continue to register Harry and Lily as living at Godric's Hollow until one of them ate, bathed, and slept at a new location at which point the charm would break as the secret no longer existed. While that would allow the coven to enter it would also alert Voldemort that they had fled. Luckily Lily had the good sense to bathe and feed Harry before coming and he was in a deep sleep at this point. Once everyone arrived she would place the Burrow under a new Fidelius in the meantime she calmly led Lily to a place to lie little Harry down and proceeded to repeat the story she had already told her parents.


	5. Harry's Errand

Harry was furious. While he was now capable of concealing his anger to any observers, inside he was practically an inferno of hate and rage. He had held suspicions last time but to have them confirmed this time was making him seethe with near bloodlust. He had meant to just check in on what passed for a home during what passed for a childhood. His parents were currently still alive yet Harry found that Mrs. Figg was already in the neighborhood and it wasn't difficult to discern she was monitoring the Dursleys. A bit of legilimency on the neighbors revealed she had been here for months though he scanned the devices she used to keep tabs on the Dursleys and found they had only been recently set-up. Probably at the same time as the Potters hid under the Fidelius.

Thanks to his coven bond Harry no longer suffered any physical signs of the abuse that he endured in this house. Though even the bond couldn't help him in dropping some of the more toxic survival habits he had been forced to adopt while living in Privet. Harry was ridiculously distrustful of any outside the coven and still had a vicious temper. It took every ounce of willpower not to break into the Dursleys home and beat them to death right now. Harry had killed before but he didn't want to touch them until he knew how his parents would react. Would they forgive them like Dumbledore most certainly would want them to? Would they attack the Dursleys themselves? If they decided to move on Harry would accept it and never spare the Dursleys a second thought. If not, Harry would murder them himself for no other reason than to prevent his parents from having to do it. He had no doubt that killing Vernon, Petunia, and aunt Marge would feel fantastic and Harry was certain his parents weren't ready for a murder that felt good.

Somehow Dumbledore had already established a ward schematic on the house right under their nose, though it was currently unpowered. Harry analyzed the design and found in the simplicity several important things were overlooked. Everything here was designed to keep someone hidden, not protected. That wasn't even going to address the fact that the wards only effected muggles and wizards. It explained why Harry's obvious abuse was overlooked and how Dobby had effortless slipped past said "protections" the closest this came to actually protecting Harry was giving the Dursleys a mild inclination to neglect him rather than outright harm him (Not that the Dursleys weren't stubborn enough to ignore the subtle compulsion). The current design would have to be recharged every couples of months but Harry could see the foundation where Dumbledore could alter it so that his younger self could inadvertently power it.

These defenses were pathetic though Harry couldn't remove them without alerting Dumbledore he could easily alter them quite a bit and not raise any alarms. While Harry seriously doubted his younger self would ever even visit this house it didn't hurt to prepare. Twenty minutes later and the wards would now kill the Dursleys if they ever treated Harry or any child under their care any worse than their own son. The best part was Harry had managed to keep his magical signature off the alterations. Harry's modifications wouldn't be noticed until after they went off. Dumbledore wouldn't be able to prove anything as Harry modified the schematic to destroy itself once it activated. Dumbledore would never be able to prove someone else had changed the layout and people would simply have to take him at his word. For an extra layer of protecting his identity Harry briefly took on the appearance of Rabastan Lestrange and allowed himself to be seen by a handful of mundanes around the neighborhood.

The Lestrange brothers were a real piece of work and lucky for him they seldom bothered remembering where they were on any given night. Harry remembered the records from their trial that apparently one day was much like any other for them and even when they did have alibis they couldn't recall them or didn't use them. Last time this had allowed several Death Eaters including Malfoy to pin their crimes on the brothers once they had been already been captured. Harry hoped that Fleur had managed to deal with them because if the coven could avoid getting them a trial it would somewhat limit what their compatriots could blame them for. The brothers had freely confessed to any crime they had been accused of and without those confessions there was little to no evidence for nearly eighty percent of the charges that had landed them in Azkaban.

With his errand as done as it was going to be tonight he had half a mind to visit Lestrange, Malfoy or Nott Manor and just start throwing killing curses at everyone he encountered but eventually managed to internally talk himself out of it. Voldemort had five Horcruxes now and none were in easy reach. The ring was probably the easiest to get as it was only guarded with traps but Harry still wanted to leave that one for Dumbledore. He knew the diary was currently at Malfoy Manor and could probably get it once he calmed down (Something Harry doubted would happen tonight). Kreacher currently had Slytherin's locket stashed away at Grimmauld Place but getting to the old elf without the Blacks knowing was damn near impossible. Hufflepuff's cup was probably in the Lestrange vault at Gringotts but the coven had never been able to confirm that Bellatrix had placed it there prior to her incarceration and the coven simply would not launch an attack on Gringotts unless they knew there was no other way. Ravenclaw's diadem was at Hogwarts but only a member of the faculty could get it without alerting Dumbledore. Unfortunately, Harry couldn't think of a single teacher currently at Hogwarts that could be trusted to retrieve it and not inform Dumbledore what they were doing. They just might have to wait until Dumbledore is out of the country and collect it themselves regardless of him learning about it after the fact. Not to mention the diadem was the ultimate prize as Voldemort's most recent Horcrux it had a tentative connect to all the ones he had previous made.

The coven couldn't use the diadem to track the other Horcruxes in real time but they could do the next best thing. They had access to an advanced scrying charm that could use Ravenclaw's diadem to show the shape and location for all of Voldemort's earlier Horcruxes at the moment he defiled the diadem by attaching a portion of his soul to it. More importantly this charm could be cast repeatedly and thus be presented as proof of their creation to the both the Ministry and the ICW. Retrieving the diadem would not only force the magical community to acknowledge how Voldemort survived but it would go a long way in explaining how despite appearing out of nowhere the coven were now experts on Voldemort's Horcruxes.

There really wasn't anything else Harry could do tonight without the coven's help. A part of him still wanting to go for a Horcrux or two but realistically Harry knew the moment that Voldemort is aware of his vulnerabilities their future knowledge suddenly becomes a lot less reliable. The coven had already decided that once they acquired the first Horcrux they would need to quickly collect all the others less he creates one that they have no idea about. Harry headed back to Godric's Hollow in order to relieve Hermione.


	6. Hermione's Priority

Hermione was grateful Harry had gotten back. He was the first out of the others and she could go and recover her focus. Hermione knew she wasn't thinking logically but she couldn't help it. Her parents were perfectly safe and one more day shouldn't hurt but her thoughts kept drifting back to them and her younger self. It was an annoying distraction but Hermione couldn't ignore it no matter how hard she tried.

Lily Potter had been a genius with the charms on Godric's Hollow. Hermione needed to devote her undivided attention if she was going to slip through her protections. Only the secret keeper could seemingly bypass them and unfortunately they had trusted the wrong person with that burden. If the coven had known such charmwork was in place they would have figured out a way to get to the Potters beforehand but they were now forced to improvise a solution on the fly.

Harry took over the vigil so that Hermione could collect her parents. While she didn't have it nearly as bad as Harry, Hermione's own childhood wasn't exactly pleasant. Her parents had been fairly supportive all things considered but she knew they had been stressed nearly to their limit by the time Hogwarts sent their representative. It had been a lifeline to explaining all the strange occurrences growing up but it would have been infinitely more valuable if it had come years earlier.

The Ministry had even been aware of her magical potential for a few years as she later discovered her first recorded use of magic was at age five. Like the rest of the muggleborn, Hermione had been left to fend for herself growing up. No chance in Hell were the coven going to allow a repeat performance. Not to mention certain paperwork needed to be filled in as early as possible with the Ministry. Paperwork that was conveniently never touched upon when introducing new people to the magical world The coven knew every muggleborn for the next several decades. The Statute of Secrecy prevented revealing magic to a non-magical with the only exception of immediate family. They had decided they would "discover" as many of them as they could and expose them to the magical world at a much younger age. By the time the coven's foreknowledge became irrelevant they would hopefully have established better means for tracing the mundane born witches and wizards. Either way the coven would be putting far more effort into incorporating them than the Ministry.

At this point her parents were just starting to expect something odd about their daughter and would be far more skeptical than they had been but it would save a lot of trouble in the long run. Hermione hit up the convenience store around the corner from her house and picked up a lottery ticket. They had recorded all winning numbers for the next forty years though the coven suspected they wouldn't continue to be accurate for long due to the butterfly effect. if it worked it would go a long way of confirming the coven's story to their parents, if it didn't it was only a few quid wasted and they wouldn't even bother mentioning it..

She practically recited Minerva's introduction when explaining magic to her parents and followed through with a dozen minor spells to prove her point. Afterwards she proceeded to go over the details of magical culture including the discrimination and the current genocide that was happening in the shadows. This was something McGonagall had never bothered explaining and Hermione knew their was a chance her parents would react horribly. Fortunately, Hermione was able to convince her parents to go for a trip somewhere safe tonight and everything would be explained later. She was very patient when explaining there were several others involved and it was a complicated story that was better to only go over once.

The coven should have two safehouses at this point but a short drive would give them just a little more time to prepare for people. She would apparate them all to one of the locations in an emergency but a drive also gave the Granger's a chance to ask some of the more trivial questions that Hermione didn't mind answering. The Grangers only knew her as Jean a woman with a passing resemblance to them but quickly learned a highly-edited version of her childhood including that she was muggleborn herself. She nearly choked when her parents had joked that she might be a distant relative as it took all of her willpower to shrug and try to come off as nonchalant. Hermione asked a few questions she already knew the answer to just to keep up appearance and was grateful her parents were answering honestly. She also picked up a small dinner as she had caught them just as they were about to start eating and charmed the food to last a week as part of her demonstration. There would be food when they got there but one was liable to look like a slob if you were starving the first time you encountered one of Molly Weasley's famous meals. 

She still wanted to get back to Godric's Hollow now that she could think straight and already had a few ideas that she could only hope Lily had overlooked. Hermione was pleasantly surprised to pull up to The Burrow and see Lily and young Harry as soon as she walked in. Her happiness was short-lived as she learned that not only was the Fidelius still in place but James had convinced Remus to stay behind and the two of them were planning an ambush for Voldemort. Right now Voldemort had done most of the prepwork for his next Horcrux and only needed a murder to finalize it. Even without the murder he could create something close enough if they managed to destroy him as his soul was currently unstable enough it could inadvertently latch itself to just about anything nearby including one of them. The coven could remove it if it ended-up on James but they would have to cure Remus of his lycanthrophy before they would be able to do the same for him.

While it made sense to keep the Fidelius up so that Voldemort didn't know they were on to him it would be a moot point once he attacked. Hermione was still annoyed and insisted that Lily eat, sleep and immediately lie down in the shower. She needed to be ready to break the Fidelius in an instant so that the coven could sweep in and deal with him the moment Voldemort entered her home. Luckily she was able to get word back to James and Remus so they wouldn't be caught off guard when the charm fell but the stubborn Marauders were unwilling to abandon their traps as they really had a score to settle with Voldemort and Hermione had to stun Lily to prevent her from going and getting them herself. Hermione sighed as she would be in for an earful when Lily awoke but she just wasn't going to risk her life. Harry had no memories of either parent and Hermione would rather play it safe and have one. James would probably be alright but as of now Lily was guaranteed to survive the night. She calmly laid Lily's unconscious form down in one of the bathrooms before looking at the clock and setting a timer to be ready and turn on the shower and cancel the Fidelius.


	7. Luna's Commission

Luna strolled into the Ministry. Everyone was focusing on the Hall of Prophecy as apparently every prophecy had suddenly exploded earlier today and injured a handful of clerks. What the coven had done was a big "fuck you" to Fate and it seemed reality needed time to adjust. The prophecies would reform within a month and most of them should be the same but at least a quarter of them would be phrased slightly differently than before if not completely changed. A few would probably no longer exist.

She had suspected something like this would happen and was here to take advantage of the chaos. Magicals were grossly incompentent and it was ridiculously easy to go about what she wanted to do. Her first stop was establishing identities and acquiring a couple business licenses. The fees and paperwork for those not in the know were insane but luckily Luna knew. There were shortcuts that they didn't advertise, employees would deny knowing of them and Luna had to use more than a few compulsions to get where she needed to go. She was also pretty sure that her activity was being reported to the death eaters and she should expect an assault sometime after she leaves. They tended to attack anyone they thought they could get away and a "mudblood who doesn't know it's betters" was a prime target. Even when they failed, the muggleborn were usually hassled and occasionally even jailed for "attacking upstanding citizens." The coven were all registered as muggleborn for three reason; Nobody at the Ministry questioned it, it would be easier to explain their familiarity with modern and future technology, and finally just to spite the Ministry. Luna had also covered her bases in that their taxes would be paid solely to the mundane government. This wasn't normally done as purebloods would end up paying more while half-bloods and muggleborns didn't even know it was an option. The only downside was they would be unable to find employment at Hogwarts or the Ministry and due to peer pressure they were unlikely to be hired by anyone at Diagon Alley. Good thing the coven planned on making their own version anyways.

Registering the coven and the Marauders as animagi was the next stop. It was only illegal to be caught unregistered and while the coven could use transfiguration to change themselves into virtually any animal they wished they only had one actual animagus form. Registering the Marauders might annoy them but it was another step in proving who they were to those they would let in on their secret. They also wanted the whole magical world to be on the lookout for Pettigrew and if he managed to slip away tonight they didn't want him to have the edge of being unregistered to help him go about unnoticed. She left Skeeter alone for now as they intended to turn her into their weapon.

The next bit was a bit trickier and completely illegal. The Goblet of Fire was a dangerous relic that should have been destroyed long ago. Currently it served as little more than a trophy that occasionally found itself in various magical museums for small stints every now and than. It was still a dangerous object that could bind people unwillingly to death traps. If Luna destroyed it they would just commission another one but that didn't mean she couldn't take it out of the equation. Crouch Jr. had proven you could fool the damn thing and the changes wouldn't be noticed until after they had already gone off. Luna managed to stealthily get access to it and alter the matrix so that it would no longer bind itself to the contestants. Now if any contestant for any reason refused to compete the Goblet would take its penalty out on the hosting headmaster rather than a student. Luna double checked everything and was now certain the change couldn't be detected much less altered until after it killed someone. At that point the coven should have had enough time to deal with anyone who knows how to make such an object. It was low on their list, but it was still there. If you were foolish enough to endorse this tournament on teenagers you deserved to die in the coven's mind.

Last stop at the Ministry involved acquiring some house elves. They weren't cheap at roughly two hundred galleons each but Luna bought the department out. Each one could easily earn enough to reimburse the initial purchase in a single day if wizardkind just used a bit of common sense. The man behind the sales thought he was being clever by forcing her to buy the old ones first but she shut him up taking all of them now and all of the next batch that would arrive in three weeks. For now the only order she gave them was to go the elf hangouts across the country and bring any unbonded elf that wanted a family. Eventually she would instruct them on how to trick cruel owners into inadvertently freeing their elves but since Harry had invented the technique it just felt wrong to leave him out of the conversation.

Taking care of everything on the mundane side was another can of worms for an entirely different reason. While they didn't try charging extortion level fees they wanted answers to questions the coven couldn't answer. Who are you? Where were you born? How old are you? Medical records? Luckily the mundanes did have a secret department for dealing with magicals. They even had a halfblood on staff constantly checking people for compulsions (something the Ministry was too arrogant to even consider). Ironically, Luna was able to use the Ministry paperwork that claimed she was a muggleborn as proof, despite the fact that the Ministry didn't verify anything. Annoyingly the witch on staff instantly recognized the lie but thanks to current relations there wasn't much she could do about it. Luna noticed a few subtle hints to realize she was part of Dumbledore's Order of the Phoenix and asked her to meet at the Burrow before she started her shift tomorrow. It was admittedly a risk but most members of Dumbledore's order weren't bad people they were just blinded by his glowing reputation and she was in an ideal position to help them on both the magical and mundane front if the coven found she could be trusted. There was just something about her that made Luna feel she wouldn't regret this decision.

When she returned to Godric's Hollow and told the others she immediately learned why. Emmeline Vance was one of the few Slytherin's in the Order and last time around Snape was an accessory to her murder in order to support his "cover." Harry had nothing but respect for the woman as he had learned she was just a fighter. She hadn't gotten involved in the Order's politicking and only really used it as an opportunity to fight death eaters. Dora was also quite fond of her. From what they knew about her Vance was more loyal to individual members of the Order rather than specifically Dumbledore and the headmaster had deliberately kept her away from some of his more questionable dealings. Harry felt she was safe enough for now and Dora immediately messaged out for her to be added to the wards. They had gotten word that Lily and young Harry were safe but James and Remus were still in the house prepared to ambush Voldemort. It was still impossible for them to discreetly slip pass the protections but they were now prepared to break them the moment Voldemort appeared. Luna felt like they were calling it close and she could tell that Harry would rather they all leave and just blow-up the building once he walks in. She decided to head over to the Burrow and see if there was anything she could help with. For now it was just a matter of waiting and unlike Dumbledore, the coven wasn't particular good at waiting.


	8. Neville's Goal

Neville was exceedingly nervous. His parents weren't hiding under a Fidelius but simply using strong wards around the ancestral manor. It was magically exhausting on their part to keep them constantly charged so he understood why his parents had relaxed once Voldemort had been vanquished, but at the same time he wished they had stayed just a bit more cautious while his supporters were still running around. Thankfully, the wards would allow him to pass but he was likely in for a long interrogation from his parents as they would be alerted as soon as he appeared.

He never really had a chance to know either of them and his grandmother's attempt to mold him into his father backfired horribly. He wasn't his father or even his mother but rather had aspects from both along with traits that were uniquely his own. Neville had only matured as a wizard when he was able to accept that he was his own person and not a copy of Frank Longbottom. Now he was about to meet the real one.

Growing up, he had been incredibly meek and always accepted that his parents were gone. They were already dead by the time the coven discovered a theoretical cure for their condition. The wizarding world was stagnant and Neville desperately wished he had questioned it more when told they would never be cured. The treatment wasn't even particularly complicated it was just a combination of magical and mundane that had never even occurred to those at St. Mungos. The coven had actually kicked themselves as they had initially overlooked it and assumed someone at some point had tried it and failed. Neville would do everything in his power to insure his family didn't need it this time around.

It turned out Neville hadn't quite prepared himself as much as he believed he had for this encounter. His mental barriers were in place and he thought he could handle it easy enough but it took everything in him not to break down sobbing the instant he heard his mother's voice. It was the first time he had ever heard it but somehow he knew exactly who it belonged to. Neville's lack of immediate response nearly resulted in him being hexed but he couldn't bring himself to care. Forcing back the tears he began going over the prepared story for tonight. He explained that due to the same prophecy that forced them into hiding the Potters were going to be attacked tonight. You-Know-Who (It annoyed Neville to use the moniker but thanks to the Taboo there was a small chance he could piggyback past the manor wards if his name was spoken aloud) had conned his way past the Fidelius protecting them and they were currently looking for a secure location to fall back on. Neville showed an Unspeakable badge and asked if the Longbottoms would prepare the wards for a few visitors.

The initial plan was to gather everyone together in the same place so they would only have to explain everything once. Despite the coven bond each member was still very much their own individual with different goals, morales, and priorities. One member might put a heavy emphasis on one thing while a different member could easily neglect mentioning it altogether. It might come off as inconsistent and could cause friction later on if those they bothered informing were told different versions of upcoming events. Telling the story together also meant they were unlikely to miss anything important. Ginny had a bit of leeway as she didn't mind repeating herself and would probably take charge of the story once the coven gathered everyone in the morning. He also managed to get his parents to agree to meeting at the Burrow tomorrow and to bring veritaserum, a pensieve, and anything else that would help confirm an unbelievable story. Such items would be far more credible if they came from a source other than the coven.

Ginny should have set-up her half of the vanishing cabinet up by now and so Neville carefully unshrunk the one he had and gave it to his father. If the manor was to be attacked, they were to immediately flee. The coven could replace literally everything here except for the people themselves. He then proceeded to supplement the wards with his own improvements and an alarm. The manor wards were still doing most of the work but his modifications would effectively stall any attack by fifteen minutes even if everything else was depowered and thus buy enough time for his family to safely evacuate. Last time the four death eaters had been able to quickly overwhelm the relaxed wards and his parents had spent what little time they had to prepare hiding Neville. Hopefully Fleur had dealt with at least one of them though Neville wouldn't mind the chance to kill them himself if she hadn't. Even though they hadn't done anything to him yet nor were they likely to be capable now, it was the principal of the thing that made him want to hurt them badly.

Eventually Neville was satisfied that Longbottom Manor was secure enough for tonight if they needed to fallback to a location that wasn't the Burrow. He returned to Godric's Hollow and barked with laughter when he had been updated on how progress was coming along. The coven now knew beyond a doubt exactly where Harry inherited his stubborn streak as the Potters had finally been reached and warned of the impending attack but James Potter voluntarily stayed behind to set a trap for Voldemort despite the fact that the Fidelius was still preventing him from receiving reinforcements. Black and Pettigrew were both still unaccounted for though Lupin had been dragged into helping James with the ambush. Without Wormtail they lacked control of the Fidelius other than to outright break it which would alert Voldemort and he was liable to do anything. Hermione, Ginny, and Luna were now at the Burrow ready to destroy the Fidelius as soon as Voldemort committed to the attack.

It seemed something they did had already started to slightly change Voldemort's plan. Probably the followers Fleur killed tonight but there were a few other possibilities that Neville considered. The coven spotted him along with a few low level death eaters walking right behind a bunch of trick-or-treaters. They were disillusioned and neither the children nor their parents saw the threat that they were literally being used as a shield to get close to the Potter's house. They didn't dare break the protections while they still had a bunch of kids within striking range and were forced to watch as a small attack force slowly approached the Potter home. Luckily, the traps Dora had provided Lupin with were quite lethal though the coven waited until the first volley finished going off before breaking the Fidelius to help prevent any nearby muggles from attempting to investigate and inadvertently getting themselves killed. Most of these could be triggered remotely and Neville hoped that James and Remus were at least a safe distance away but wouldn't count on it if the rumours involving them were even half accurate. Neville felt the protections collapse and immediately sprung into action barely a step behind the others yet by the time they got there a wounded Voldemort had apparated away leaving behind his peons while a crowd started to gather. Neville and Dora proceeded to obliviate the bystanders along with giving them a compulsion to return to their homes while Harry and Fleur helped the Marauders dispatch the remaining death eaters. It was going to be a long night.


	9. Native Perspective

James Potter was usually thrilled on Halloween. It was typically his favorite day of the year and having a muggleborn wife meant he had the excuse to dress up in a silly costume and distribute ungodly amounts of candy to small children. Last year he had given every kid over a pound of chocolate each but this year he couldn't do anything of the sort. James hated being in hiding but he was willing to do anything to protect his wife and son. Death eaters had already murdered his aunt Dorea, uncle Charlus, and their son Caelum in an attempt to get to Harry and James strongly suspected they were involved in the deaths of Lily's parents. He had no doubt that his own parents would have been victims of the death eaters if dragon pox hadn't gotten to them first. There wasn't much he could do in hiding. James had leapt at the chance to pull one more prank on Voldemort when Padfoot came-up with his bluff. Wormtail was the gentlest of the Marauders, Voldemort would never suspect him of being trusted with such an important secret as the Fidelius. Padfoot, Moony, or even Dumbledore were much more obvious choices. Voldemort would waste time and resources trying to capture them only to find they couldn't provide him with the secret of their location. It was brilliant.

So imagine his surprise when Moony appeared and rather than dropping off supplies informed him that Voldemort had called their bluff. Not only was his friend angry at him for withholding such information but now all of magical Britain was on the lookout for Peter. The Order was trying to bring him in for protection while death eaters were scrambling to capture him. James felt like shit as not only did their plan apparently not work, it had also put a rather large target on one of his best friends. He was determined to make up for this. Voldemort would attack tonight and James would make sure Harry and Lily were long gone. Someone had given Remus an arsenal of weapons to prep for Voldemort and James wasn't about to let them go to waste. It was apparently enough to level the block if done right though James was skeptical of such a claim.

He would have words later with whoever created these traps as a couple of the designs he vaguely recognized and was under the impression they were Potter or Black family secrets. His own family had a proud history going back millennia of potion mastery and many of these products reminded him of his childhood and the private lessons his father had given him. James had spent enough time with Sirius and Aunt Dorea to recognize the markings of the Black family as some of them looked downright cruel. Moony had already tested everything before arriving and it seemed to be in working order but that just added to his confusion. The Blacks were supporters of Voldemort, While Padfoot's grandfather kept a safe distance from anything that could implicate him it was an open secret that he was providing behind the scenes aid to Voldemort. He was rumoured to view the dark lord as a personal attack dog to be set loose upon his enemies though Voldemort never addressed such claims. Why would they be providing such tools to be used against Voldemort? James considered that maybe the mad dog had bitten the hand that fed him and this was punishment for killing Regulus. The murder of Padfoot's brother was still a complete mystery, no body had turned up and no person had claimed responsibility. Family magic had one day simply alerted them and the Ministry to his passing and that it was an act of violence. The Order of the Phoenix didn't kill, and the aurors would have reported it which only left Voldemort or one of his supporters as likely candidates.

Lily was all too happy to take Harry and get out once she learned Voldemort knew how to get to them. She would have to take precautions not to unintentional break the Fidelius when leaving. It was a bit of an argument about him staying behind but this was a mess he created and James needed to clean it up himself. She only relented when James promised to follow her once he was done though he neglected to mention exactly what he considered "done." As far as he was concerned, he wasn't done until he had either killed Voldemort or died in the attempt. He knew he was in for one of his wife's infamously lectures once she realized what he planned but right now he didn't care as both she and their son were safe. James was the one who made the mistake and already responsible for putting his friends at risk, he would be damned if Lily endangered herself just to fix it. Marlene McKinnon and her family had been close with his wife and Lily still hadn't fully recovered from their deaths especially when the gossip was that the death eaters had been looking for information on her at the time. Benjy's gruesome death shortly afterwards didn't help. James loved his wife dearly but he knew she had one glaring flaw when it came to magic. Lily would completely neglect defence in order to unleash enormous amounts of power in offense whenever she was angry enough. On the other extreme she would ignore offense and play strictly defence if she was scared enough. She was currently both and James didn't have a clue how she would react to a fight right now. The logical part of his brain was telling him she would be okay but the primal part was forcing him to be protective of her and that was something he couldn't risk. James knew his strengths and his limitations and if he was going to have any chance against Voldemort he needed his undivided attention. That would only happen if James knew his family was already safe and sound long before any spells were fired.

Everything was set-up by the time he heard back from Lily through a communication mirror. She and Harry were safely at the Burrow and under some impressive wards that he had no idea how the Weasley's afforded but if they were keeping his family safe the Potters would reimburse them for the expense. His wife immediately tried to get him to join her but he wasn't finished and needed to be nearby to set off the first volley. James could tell she would have been screaming at him if she wasn't concerned about waking Harry. Lily had just mentioned going back to retrieve him when someone stunned her. James didn't recognize the woman but he was incredibly grateful to her. Not only had she kept his wife safe, she had probably just made herself a target for Lily's rant and that would lighten his own punishment. The woman explained that they would break the Fidelius once You-Know-Who arrived and hopefully catch him by surprise and allow reinforcements to help deal with him. It wasn't much longer till Voldemort appeared along with a handful of his lackeys at his current residence and James had to wait until the last one was on his lawn before unleashing the first wave. A shower of fire, lightning, and metal rained down on them followed by the immediate breaking of the Fidelius which gave James and Remus a few seconds to release the second volley before they managed to get any shields up. He initially lost sight of everything except the three peons that tried to gang-up on him but did notice a wounded Voldemort flee just as the promised reinforcements arrived. Two immediately went to work dispatching the flunkies Voldemort abandoned while another two quickly started obliviating any nearby bystanders. Aurors would arrive soon, the woman who had help deal with the death eaters asked him to bring veritaserum, a pensieve, and anything else that would be needed to confirm an unbelievable story to the Burrow once he had dealt with the aurors. The four left before anyone else arrived. Padfoot showed-up first having spent the day searching for Wormtail and feeling the Fidelius collapse. Hagrid was minutes afterwards apparently being sent by Dumbledore though it seemed the headmaster believed them dead, a dozen aurors eventually joined the party and James knew he was in for a major headache.


	10. Truth

The Potters had been saved but so had Voldemort. He was neither captured nor destroyed and had managed to flee the scene. While they knew the headmaster would have been willing to sacrifice James and Lily to deal with Voldemort and rest easy, they would never even consider that trade. None of the coven would sleep tonight. Wormtail was also still unaccounted for but this time at least everyone knew he had sold out the Potters even if they were under the impression he had been coerced into doing so. They would let it play out that way for now. Hopefully he would turn himself in if he thinks he can play the victim. If not the wards around the Burrow and Longbottom Manor were quite capable and in fact designed to capture him.

Fleur and Harry went out baiting more death eaters while they waited for the marauders to finish up at the Ministry. The pair managed to lure in a handful of small fish but neither Voldermort or any of his inner circle made an appearance. They made the deaths look like mundane causes and left them in places they would be found by muggles over the course of the upcoming weeks. One of them would have brought the body to Aragog's brood if they had caught anyone important but it was just a few low-level flunkies. The only real purpose tonight was reducing Voldemort's numbers and venting their frustrations on the wizard nazis.

They had quickly realized that it would be safest to go for the horcruxes once Voldemort was put in a position he would be unable to counter them from. Dumbledore had roughly ten years last time to weaken his support base or determine how Voldemort survived that night and failed on an epic scale. As Chief Warlock he had allowed the death eaters to lick their wounds and rebuild their forces while simultaneously encouraging his own side to become the perfect victims. Dumbledore had access to all the information he needed to eventually figure it out even if he had been initially unaware of the horcruxes. Instead, he did virtually nothing for the entirety of the upcoming decade as Dumbledore was the type who trusted Fate to handle everything.

It was four in the morning by the time James, Remus, and Sirius turned-up at the Burrow. James and Sirius had been scolded for trying to pull a prank on Voldemort and not informing anyone else of the switch. The Ministry had been prepared to make an example of Padfoot when they first heard of the Potters being attacked and only hesitated because the Potters survived and James was able to explain the switch. Apparently Peter's mother had hexed James for endangering her son and would have been arrested if not him stubbornly refusing to press charges. The marauders were also annoyed to learn that somebody had registered their animagus forms with the Ministry earlier today and tried to rant that such an edge could have helped Wormtail escape but the coven calmly explained that Voldemort already knew about them how else could they explain Peter not already escaping. They still didn't want to reveal his treachery until everyone was there and that wouldn't be for a few more hours.

Dumbledore had not emerged entirely unscathed either. The idiot had explained that he had thought them dead when Voldemort attacked and had begun making arrangements for Harry to stay with the Dursleys. He obviously hadn't expected a member of the order to question him and had been blindsided by James Potter's reaction. James had been enraged and insisted that was never going to happen before calling in a few favors and forcing Dumbledore into an Unbreakable Vow to never leave Harry with them in order to avoid a vote of no-confidence. Most of his support base was unaffected as he seemed to play the vow off as a mere formality rather than the serious lack of trust in his decisions it had been. The coven was curious of the exact wording on the vow as Dumbledore didn't usually submit so easily but then again Unbreakable Vows really did need a different name as they were no harder to break than a normal vow you just died afterwards. They could even kill someone who had previously made a horcrux if such a person was stupid enough to break them. They were also quite aware that Dumbledore didn't really consider death such a bad thing. The coven didn't like using them for that very reason, though they weren't above asking someone if they were willing to make one to help determine if they could be trusted.

The other possibility they considered was that the Potters had now defied him four times and thus clearly weren't the ones in the prophecy. The coven could easily see them dismissing the Potters as irrelevant now. Voldemort would eventually get back to them but he currently had higher priorities as he perceived a threat to his immortality. Both Voldemort and Dumbledore were highly likely to now focus on Neville at least until the Longbottoms defied him once more. At that point maybe they just might start to use a bit of common sense about the prophecy. It never occurred to either of the machiavellian schemers that it could be referring to a different dark lord or even something as simple as a different calendar. Not everyone who defied him did so as openly as members of the Order of the Phoenix. Luna had at one point managed to show that just over half the students they had gone to school with including some death eater children qualified by using a combinations of different definitions of "defying" and different calendars from around the world. The only reason it applied to Harry was because Voldemort had chosen him and the only reason Voldemort had chosen him was because Dumbledore had practically served Harry on a silver platter. A rotating shift of at least two members of the coven stayed near Longbottom Manor throughout the night until the Longbottoms joined them at the Burrow.

Fleur collected her father from the airport and brought him to the Burrow. Dora and Luna went and retrieved their parents along with their younger selves. The coven finally had everyone in one place as they set-up a mirror communication with Apolline and were now ready to tell their story. Luna assigned a dozen elves to keep an eye on the children and alert them if anything major happened while they were explaining who they were to everyone. This was going to take a while. To keep initial temper in check everyone including the coven surrendered their wands into a timed safe for the first twenty minutes as they proceeded to prove the impossible. Ironically, it was the Lovegoods who were the most skeptical of the claim but eventually the combination of veritaserum, pensieve memories, and their knowledge of everyone managed to finally sway them. The coven broke down in explaining that they had lost everyone they cared about and left their world to its fate. They wanted a brighter future and didn't have the will or desire to fight people they had been trying to help for decades and instead opted for a fresh start to obtain it. The world they came from was still out there somewhere but they couldn't save it. Dumbledore had molded the world into lambs for the slaughter who could no longer think or provide for themselves. They were determined not to let it happen again. Of the eighteen they were letting in on the secret and incorporating into their plans, half of them would have otherwise been dead in the next two decades including the two that would have died last night and none from natural causes. Remus had tried complaining that what they were doing was against the laws of magic but Lily had quickly shut him up and berating him for abandoning her son. She was so infuriated that she had "accidentally" revealed his condition in her rant to the room before promptly fainting. A quick scan from the coven confirmed it, Lily Potter was pregnant, less than a week.


	11. Consequences

There was too much to absorb at once. Lily Potter was the smartest witch of her generation but today was filled with revelation after revelation. Combined with yesterday's near death experience she just needed to slow down for a minute to collect her thoughts. Even the day she first learned of magic was easier to process than today. The future had been so bleak that her son had broken several laws of magic just to prevent it from happening. If things had gone as they had last time she and James would already be dead, Sirius would be being lured into an ambush that had him rotting away for twelve years in Azkaban, and little Harry would be on his way to spending the next ten years in a closet beneath the stairs under her sister's care.

It was hard to think of the man that helped prevent it as her son especially since he had dead grandchildren older than her. Time travel was suppose to be strictly for observing the past and not changing it yet here he was with his spouses doing just that. Lily couldn't help it and despite the serious situation she laughed that her son had five wives and a husband to look forward to but the coven explained that they had only bonded through their shared losses and didn't expect the coven to reform with their younger selves as they planned on stopping such tragedy this time. They would consider themselves lucky if even two of them got together and had no intention of trying to force it.

The others weren't taking it any better than she was. Alice and Frank were horrified that death eaters had tortured them into insanity. Pandora was in tears that one of her experimental spells backfired and would have slowly killed her in front of her daughter. Emmeline, Sirius, and Ted were practically screaming that even though Voldemort and his followers had lost the first war they had been almost universally forgiven and allowed to recover and integrate back into the Ministry. Dumbledore had allowed them to bribe their way to freedom so they may "redeem" themselves and a lot of truly good people died in the second war. Even those that apparently would have survived Voldemort weren't looking so hot at what it had cost them along the way.

Remus was the only one who tried defending Dumbledore but Lily suspected that might have been out of guilt for his own future actions. She couldn't believe he would trust Wormtail over Padfoot, though she readily accepted he would spend the next several years in isolation for his own private pity party. It was clear to her that the coven knew of his condition and didn't want to out him to the others as they had carefully skirted around the issue when discussing the future. Lily had no fucking time for that, Harry would have been better off with anyone but her sister and she was still seething that Remus hadn't even bothered to check-up on him at some point. He couldn't even use the excuse that he was afraid of transmitting the curse as both she and James would have honestly preferred their son being a werewolf than a house elf. She verbally eviscerated the man and let him know exactly what she thought of him using his "furry little problem" as a crutch before her world slowly faded black.

Lily awoke to a comfortable bed with her son and husband snuggled on either side of her. The coven had obviously been caught off guard and informed her that she was pregnant. Her pregnancy filled her with hope as the implications sunk in. This was a life that otherwise would never have been born or even known about but it was a tangible and immediate improvement over what might have happened. Her nerves were pure steel at this point as she felt a newfound determination to not waste the coven's efforts. Lily knew they weren't light as they had already killed over a dozen death eaters and when they shared the method it was honestly surprising nobody had thought to use it before. Of course Voldemort usually made an appearance himself but still she could think of a handful that could hold their own against him especially if they managed to lure him into an ambush. James and Sirius were excited about the prospect of going on a "fishing" trip later but Remus was still timid about the idea of looking for a fight.

About the only thing everyone agreed on was keeping Lily off the frontlines at least until her child was born. The coven explained that last time Lily's sacrifice had weakened Voldemort to the point it took over a decade for him to return to power and tragically the light had wasted those important years and were subsequently slaughtered upon his rebirth. They didn't have that sacrifice this time but they still needed something to take Voldemort out of the picture at least temporarily before they could safely move on his Horcruxes. The coven currently knew where most of them were and had a pretty good idea about the rest but Voldemort was liable to move them should he learn someone was targeting them. There was also the distinct possibility that by now he had made one the coven knew nothing about as they were still clueless as to what Voldemort had planned to use as the Horcrux created with Harry's murder. He eventually made another Horcrux out of a Maledictus named Nagini when he killed low-level Ministry employee Bertha Jorkins but he hadn't encountered her until after his first defeat while hiding out in Albania.

She spent hours learning of the future and bouncing ideas off the coven for the war effort and was surprised and grateful that she was actually able to help them. Not all of her ideas were going to be put into play as the coven had gently pointed out a few problems that might arise with some of them, but most of her suggestions were incorporated into whatever they were planning. They might be older and wiser but Lily had a much better feel for current events. To them much of this war was learned through books that weren't even published yet but to her she was living through them right now and understood details that just wouldn't make it to the history lessons. Most of Lily's ideas involved what to do after Voldemort was neutralized as there currently wasn't much they could do except keep trying to bait him out of hiding and the recent discovery of her pregnancy made all of them reluctant to involve her in anything physical.

The Horcrux located at Grimmauld place would have been tricky as Sirius was still disinherited and would likely never set foot there again. His grandfather wasn't likely to reinstate him as heir this time around. Lily still didn't understand how everyone on both sides had so readily accepted him of serving Voldemort. The Blacks had acted accordingly and happily brought him back into the line of succession (probably just to delay Lucius from inheriting as he had only married a Black and didn't actually have any of their blood) and by the time it became obvious he wasn't in Voldemort's service after escaping Azkaban all of them were already dead. After listening to what they had to work with Lily proposed that they discreetly supply Kreacher with the means of destroying the Horcrux when he makes one of his routine shopping trips. They just needed another elf to waylay Kreacher at the market and provide him with a basilisk fang and a recording of someone speaking parseltongue, both of which were apparently easy enough for the coven to obtain. Slytherin's Locket required some impressive willpower to overcome Voldemort's protections and there were few beings on Earth as motivated to destroy it as that old elf was.


	12. Scaring Death

Voldemort was still skulking about somewhere. The coven had no luck in baiting him out of hiding and had little luck from interrogating his followers they were now capturing before killing. The aurors had the complete list of names Igor Karkaroff provided last time plus the names of everyone the coven was certain had been on his side the first time around. It would be both unfair and counter productive to give names of people that hadn't joined him yet and potentially wouldn't thanks to the changes they were making. Dumbledore had completely endorsed Igor's pardon as it gave him a chance to atone yet didn't bat an eye at the crimes he had gleefully committed under the mask. Karkaroff at most had been a minor distraction when Voldemort sent men to kill him and that was hardly worth letting him run a school that already had a bad reputation for dark wizards.

The coven had elves patrolling the muggleborn and half-blood households as best they could but there were still more places to guard than there were those to guard them. There were roughly a thousand muggleborn households in the U.K though just over eight hundred were currently known to the Ministry while barely three hundred were even aware of magic at this point. Luckily the security only had to last long enough for one of the coven to arrive and deal with the threat. The elves had to prioritize likely targets to watch over but this task was two-fold. The elves were also to watch for signs of accidental magic at which point the coven could "discover" them and bring them into the fold much earlier than the Ministry would have preferred. Purebloods needed that eleven year headstart in order to compete with the versatility of the first generations.

To put it bluntly most purebloods were specialists. Their families had centuries if not millennia to perfect and refine certain aspects of magic while the muggleborns were more along the lines of "jack of all trades, master of none." A pureblood could usually hold their own on whatever principal of magic their family excelled at but would be helpless in other fields. Purebloods only held control because muggleborn were unfamiliar with the culture and double-dealing that took place behind closed doors. Most muggleborn were woefully unprepared for magical or even mundane society by the time they finished schooling and were subsequently forced to the outskirts. Voldemort was powerful because he was the best of both worlds. His mother's Slytherin heritage had unknowingly granted him major insight into dark arts, mnd magics, and potions while his father's muggle blood allowed him to broaden his horizons and seek power wherever he found it.

Pureblood supremacy was a relic from the age of the literal witch hunts when muggleborns would share wizarding intelligence with inquisitors attempting to spare themselves from the flame. The laws in place wouldn't change until they inconvenienced the establishment and the coven knew just the loophole to do so. The very same measures that allowed purebloods to discriminate based off blood-status also technically allowed muggleborns to reject hiring or serving purebloods. It never happened that way as few muggleborns owned wizarding businesses and none of which had enough wealth they could voluntarily turn a potential client or employee away but neither were a problem for the coven. They imagined it would be less than a year before those in control of the government changed the law. Even if they did change it so only purebloods could discriminate, the coven was prepared to hand off "ownership" to the Longbottoms, Lovegoods, or Weasleys and continue the practice for as long as it took for the lesson to sink in.

The mundane society could easily fix half the magical problems and most of the other half with only minor challenges. The magical society could also provide aid in solving most of the mundane troubles of the world but both sides were blissfully unaware of each others woes or even compassionate enough to care. Bone marrow transplants could treat blood curses, modified wardstones could eventually clean the air and oceans along with a hundred other relatively simple solutions to problems that most had simply given up on trying to solve long ago. The entire establishment was likely to fight them every step of the way and the coven would need to bring in whatever friends they could especially from the young as they weren't as entrenched in their ways yet. Their knowledge of future events would prove most useful in acquiring allies. Even Draco Malfoy had proven to be a semi-useful member of society once his father had been publicly humiliated and proven wrong after Voldemort's downfall, if the coven could arrange for that to happen much earlier he just might turn out to be a decent human being this time.

Another minor concern was the coven finally managed to review Dumbledore's oath and the wording did indeed allow him to arrange for young Harry to stay at the Dursleys so long as he didn't make the drop personally. Lily and James were predictably infuriated and Harry kept the promise to himself in stopping his parents from killing them by doing the deed himself. As far as the rest of the world was concerned Marge, Petunia, and Vernon Dursley died in a drunken car crash when they plowed into the home of one Arabella Figg. Dudley ended-up with some distant relative that Harry had never even met last time around as the Dursleys had left explicit instructions in their wills that under no circumstances was he to be left with Lily or anybody she was acquainted with. The Potters didn't have the drive or even inclination to fight the ruling though they did have one of Ted's friends keep an eye on the boy as a favor and arrange for him to be well-provided for. Unlike Figg, they would interfere at the first sign of any abuse or negligence consequences be damned, but would leave him alone if his current arrangements were acceptable. Dudley was honestly better off already as last time it took a dementor nearly killing him to break those bad habits his parents had fostered in him.

Weeks passed and Voldemort still failed to make an appearance. Baiting death eaters rarely worked as they caught one or two a week at most, but it was better than sitting around doing nothing. The coven had captured Greyback and rendered him down into the medicinal ointment. There was enough for two doses though Remus insisted he knew people that deserved it more than him and volunteered for the longer treatment method once they established a global network of safehouses for him to stay at. In the meantime the coven dosed him with elephant tranquilizer during the nights of the full moon allowing him to sleep through the change and awake sore but refreshed when compared to the alternative. They had introduced forty six muggle families into the magical world years earlier and it was already returning interest as the Longbottom and Potter families were happy to hire the parents as instructors for any muggle subjects they were familiar with. One family was attacked and the coven responded brutally, most of the attack force had been beaten to death with hammers but the ringleader had his tongue ripped out, crucified on a magical street and kept under a Fidelius. People could smell the blood and shit but couldn't locate it until he passed as he slowly died of dehydration though not before having his memory of the experience forcibly taken and a copy sent to every death eater household the coven knew of.


	13. Light Delusions

Albus Dumbledore was confused. All of his careful planning had been undone. He was the foremost expert on all things Tom Riddle and knew the way his mind worked. As a half-blood with a muggle name in the snake's den he had been forced to use his charm, guile, and intellect to enter the pureblood circles and it wasn't long before he had many of them wrapped around his finger. The boy wanted revenge on wizarding society for what it had done to him. Tom wanted to be worshipped as the next Arthur, Merlin, and Morgana all rolled into one and by a cruel bit of fate he had the power to do it.

Dumbledore knew that Tom would narrow down his target to the Longbottoms and the Potters based off the portion of the prophecy he had been made aware of. Tom was terrified of death and would always go overboard at any real or even perceived threat to him. Dumbledore however had the edge in that he knew the whole prophecy. Tom marking one of the boys as an equal was easy enough to discern, he would kill the parents like he had done with his own and thus seal his doom. The child would have Fate itself protecting him and grow-up to defeat Tom. Dumbledore knew of a ritual for those deaths to mean something. The Killing Curse was Tom's go to spell and despite the reputation there were ways to counter it. Voluntarily stepping in front of the curse to spare another would leave the babe protected and it would rebound onto Tom. Albus made sure that both families were aware of the spell by loaning the appropriate tomes, he knew that he couldn't outright suggest it as they had to discover it themselves in order to go along with it.

Tom would probably attack the Potters as the child was a half-blood like himself. Tom didn't have a bigoted bone in his body but he had always been one hell of an actor. Dumbledore couldn't out him without putting all those of muggle origins in danger. Grindelwald had been a pureblood, if the wizarding world learned that Voldemort was a half-blood they would follow the obvious pattern and assume the next dark lord would be a muggleborn and thus subject an entire caste to even more discrimination. It was better for everyone if they assumed he was a pureblood as it was the only group that would never be held accountable no matter how many dark lords arose from their ranks. Dumbledore made sure to "borrow" the Potter cloak as he knew Tom would steal it if it had been left with the Potters. Dumbledore could than return it to the boy at a later date in order to curry favor.

It had taken a long time for Albus to finally accept that Tom was beyond redemption and that was Dumbledore's eternal failure. His followers however could still be saved and made to see the errors of their ways. With their precious dark lord defeated by an infant, they would see how misguided they had been and abandon their evil ways once exposed to the mercy of the light. He just had to wait for Voldemort to attack on All Hallows' Eve. Tom wasn't usually predictable but with something as sensitive as this Dumbledore knew he would hold his attack until a date he believed fortune favored him.

Unfortunately, a new player entered the game and threw all his planning out the window. The Hall of Prophecy had literally blown up and Dumbledore was still trying to figure out how or why. The Potters had secretly evacuated their home at Godric's Hollow and laid an ambush for Tom that killed several of his followers and forced him to flee. Them surviving had thrown him off and he had let slip that he had made arrangements for Harry to stay with Lily's sister. Dumbledore still didn't see what the big deal was but James called in favors and managed to force him into giving an Unbreakable Vow never to leave Harry with the Dursley family. Dumbledore was greatly annoyed as those favors could have been put to better use than putting himself in a bind. Not that it mattered as the family turned out to be a bunch of drunkards and crashed into the nearby house that he left someone there to monitor them. Arabella hadn't been there at the time but was somewhat upset with him as he had assured her it wasn't going to be a dangerous task and yet an automobile had barreled into her living room and Dumbledore found himself footing the bill.

To top it off, Tom's followers were now being slaughtered by the droves. It saddened him that someone out there was murdering them before they had a chance to repent. He couldn't even get the aurors to investigate seriously as Barty Crouch wasn't interested in looking too deeply into their deaths and probably wanted plausible deniability. Dumbledore wandered if he would be more receptive if he knew he was risking his own son's life by ignoring these murderers. These were cruel deaths that put even Tom's work to shame and unfortunately Dumbledore had no idea who was behind them. Four of them had been eaten alive by the acromantula colony near Hogwarts and the Ministry was already calling for the death of Aragog and his entire brood. Hagrid was predictably upset and even the news that his case was being reopened brought no comfort to the gentle giant. Someone had connected Aragog and the "Beast of Slytherin" and surprisingly concluded that he wasn't responsible for the death of Myrtle Warren and that he had simply been used as a convenient scapegoat for the murder. That was the last thing Dumbledore wanted as it wouldn't take a genius to make the connection to the boy that "caught" Hagrid and Dumbledore didn't want people looking into one Tom Marvalo Riddle.

It honestly reminded him of years ago when he reluctantly opposed Grindelwald as whoever this opponent was knew him well and countered his moves with expert efficiency. They didn't have an ounce of mercy as they didn't leave survivors. Severus had shown him a memory they had sent him and it was a masterful stroke of manipulation. One of Voldemort's followers had died in broad daylight crucified and sobbing yet those around him merely tried to locate or ignore the foul smell. Dumbledore suspected the Fidelius as the man's death had taken days. Whoever collected it made sure to hide their identity and send copies to every one of Voldemort's supporters including a few that he had been previously unaware of according to Severus. An influx of muggleborn had been "discovered" by parties unknown years before was typical. Dumbledore suspected it was somehow a part of their plan as the murdered death eater had been the ringleader on an attack against one of them and those that accompanied him were found beaten to death throughout London.

The Potters, Longbottoms, and surprisingly the Weasleys weren't on good speaking terms with him since the attack though they were careful with how they phrased turning down any of his requests. He theorized that they might have been brought into the fold of whoever was responsible for the recent change as their entire modus operandi transformed overnight since the attack. They were now constantly moving locations while James returned to active duty in the war effort. There was a rumour that he was attempting to use himself as bait to draw Voldemort out and confront him. It was something he wouldn't put past the Gryffindor and Dumbledore would have considered sharing the prophecy with James had the record not been destroyed. He couldn't use his memory of the event without revealing it was Severus that overheard the prophecy as James would instantly see through a false one thanks to the training his aunt had given him.


	14. Homefront

Lily Evans Potter spent these days in the safety of the Burrow. Frank was the new secret keeper for the Fidelius protecting her, while Apolline Delacour was the secret keeper protecting the Longbottoms, Xenophilius was the secret keeper protecting the Delacour estate in France, Andromeda Tonks was the secret keeper for the Lovegoods, James was the secret keeper protecting the Tonks household, and Molly would be the secret keeper once they restored Potter Retreat as dragon pox could linger in a house for years after the death of its victims. All secret keepers carried emergency portkeys when leaving the house that could be activated at a moment's notice and automatically activated if the secret keeper was ever rendered unconscious. Additionally, each location was now built like a fortress with both magical and mundane security methods that had taken the coven over a day of work a piece and usually left at least half of them exhausted. The coven had even charmed a set of journals to constantly alert them of everyone who had been let in on any of the secrets thus every household could monitor those in the know so that even if someone was deemed a threat they would instantly be aware of it. The level of paranoia was something even Moody would be impressed by and it saddened Lily to know that the coven had learned it the hard way.

The more she learned of the future the more grateful she became for the coven's help to avoid it. Her death would have bought roughly a ten year reprieve that had gone completely wasted. Dumbledore had Harry spend those ten years as less than a house elf and Lily couldn't blame him for killing the Dursleys once they were made aware that Dumbledore still considered her sister a valid option for raising him. Her son had known only abuse, war, and death his entire life. He had lost everyone for people that didn't even appreciate it yet thanks to Dumbledore the people had come to expect him to continue to sacrifice for them. Lily would find herself on the verge of tears staring at the portraits of her grandchildren and great grandchildren for hours at a time. Every last one of them had died before their time trying to save a world that wasn't worth it. Her heart broke that the coven had made peace with the unthinkable and had accepted they were unlikely to be born this time around.

Luna and Hermione had given a glimmer of hope. Each portrait had been made with just a faint echo of the original's magic. Nothing like a Horcrux that Voldemort had made but more like a fingerprint or a strand of hair that could be used to replicate the source. The coven had given the Delacours a portrait of Fleur's younger sister who wasn't even born yet. The spell they created would destroy the portrait but recreate the original the next time Apolline was pregnant provided both parents were the same, it couldn't bring back the dead but since Gabrielle didn't exist yet there was a bit of wiggle room. She might have a different birthday and her attitude would be a bit different depending on the circumstances of being raised but she would have the same soul as well as the potential to be the same person. Lily had no doubt the spell would be made illegal should the Ministry ever learn of its existence as it was blatantly breaking the accepted laws of time travel.

Her son's biological children had been with Ginny Weasley and Lily briefly wanted to pair the two of them together but Harry's older counterpart was adamant not to interfere in the life of his younger self. He wasn't opposed to the idea of seeing young James, Cedric, or Lily again but he didn't want to get his hopes up, nor put any sort of obligation on the children. The coven had done all this so that they could have their own life free of manipulation and that included minimizing their own involvement. Young Harry would learn the truth once he graduated school and allowed to freely choose just how much he wanted to follow in their footsteps. Though older Harry had made a few subtle hints that he hoped his younger self would be nothing like him.

Voldemort was still keeping his head down and there was even word he had left the country but Lily and the others didn't know exactly whether to believe that or not. The aurors were finally starting to bring in some of his followers and actually managing to make a few charges stick. Crouch Jr. was in Azkaban as James had slipped him veritaserum at the Ministry and brought him in for routine questioning. The coven was keeping a close eye on events as they knew exactly how his father had arranged for his escape last time though it might not happen this time as he was only there for lesser charges and subject to release after eight years. Crouch Sr. was incredibly useful for now in keeping the aurors ruthless and the coven didn't want to waste that. Dumbledore hadn't tried nearly as hard as last time to show mercy or accept bribes but that probably had something to do with Voldemort still being out there somewhere. Lily imagined he would revisit the cases once Voldemort had been defeated at which point he would push for release or parole. Lucius Malfoy was one of the few to secure a pardon and was now cementing a legitimate powerbase by proving he had been under an Imperius curse from Rodolpus Lestrange. The reveal caught everyone for a loop as they had always assumed he had simply lied but when they thought about it for a moment they found it probably he had voluntarily submitted to the curse as a layer of protection for himself though it was unlikely he had ever been made to do anything he wouldn't have willingly done anyway. It also helped take out someone who was in line ahead of him to inherit the Black estate. The Lestranges were on the run and their home made unplottable though the coven wouldn't put it past them to hide out in Malfoy Manor once everything cooled down enough. Malfoy was now taking a page out of Arcturus's playbook and letting the rank and file do most of the work while he stayed behind the scenes.

Everyone was still saying "You-Know-Who" as his followers would still occasionally make an appearance but saying his name was no longer a guaranteed death sentence. The Unspeakables had finally gathered enough intelligence to remove the Taboo and wanted to bring in Lily to help but she was reluctant to leave the safety of the Burrow right now particularly when it didn't lack for luxuries like Godric's Hollow had. Her son had the best of both worlds as he was protected and had children his own age to interact with. Lily could honestly see herself comfortably living like this till the day he left for school and beyond. She and the other parents were now more hesitant to put the children through Hogwarts as Dumbledore clearly viewed it as his personal playground but the coven was adamant they should be able to neuter some of his influence and it was still the most practical magical school for those in the U.K. The coven insisted it was more about making friends for life than learning magic as only half the staff were competent at any given time yet the people they met during their time at Hogwarts was worth every bit of it. They also planned on eventually creating a summer program to counter the lack of standards with Dumbledore. The licenses required to open a school that competed with Hogwarts were difficult to obtain and easy for an outsider to obstruct but offering lessons that were no threat to Hogwarts enrollment was just a matter of making sure the buildings were up to code and not in violation of the Statute.

Her current pregnancy limited her own activities as spellwork was exhausting and she didn't dare go near a cauldron but luckily that left her with plenty of time to spend with her son and an army of elves to clean up after the adorable tyke. For now, Lily was content to just be involved in the planning stages. Everyday she learned more about their plans as it became clearer and clearer that the world would never be the same as it was.


	15. Base and Contemporary House of Coventry

Voldemort was in the wind. The coven had been making expert progress going through his followers and even the aurors were bringing in some impressive names now that they no longer had their master's protection. At this point they were willing to believe he had fled the country with most of his inner circle but they couldn't figure out where he had traveled to. First they had checked his usual haunts of Riddle Manor and the Gaunt Shack but he wasn't at either. Their parents guilted them into acquiring the Horcrux hidden at the shack since they were already in the area. Casually pointing out that leaving it there on the hope that it would kill Dumbledore like last time was just a little bit reckless considering all the changes they had already made. It also presented a good opportunity to lure Voldemort if he senses their intrusion but unfortunately he failed to make an appearance as they leveled what passed for an ancestral home.

The Gaunt Ring was by far the least useful Horcrux for what they intended but they could still gather some value from it. As Voldemort's first Horcrux when he murdered his father it had no connection to any of the others and he probably wouldn't even feel anything if they destroyed it. The only thing they could use it for would be to prove to others what Voldemort had done. Even destroying it would be a meaningless gesture until the others were dealt with as well. The coven was quite capable of containing the dangers it posed for now and thus would keep it on hand as a tool to bring others into the fold. As a Hallow it was worse than useless, it was cursed. They had never found any evidence that it did indeed bring back the souls of the deceased merely that it appeared to. The "spirits" would do or say anything to lead you to death. Anything from guilting you for your failures to reassuring you dying was painless, it seemed everything was fair game and nothing was sacred. The dead could be consulted for advice but anything they said was meant to eventually kill you. The coven found it probable that the stone had contributed to the decay of the Gaunt bloodline so they made sure to keep it locked-up tight and warn everyone of the dangers involved.

They scoured Albania as that had been where he hid last time but found no sign of him or any of his remaining followers. They did however locate Nagini and easily understood how she fell to Voldemort's influence. The blood curse had fully run its course on the Maledictus and she was currently trapped in her snake form. Her memory of the events leading up to everything was hazy as she operated largely on instinct but there was one thing she was crystal clear about; Dumbledore had allowed her friend to die as part of his scheme against Grindelwald. Credence Barebone had helped rescue her from a life of slavery and was Nagini's only friend. As an obscurial he should have died young yet somehow he managed to survive longer than any before him. None of that mattered to Dumbledore who casually sacrificed him in his war with Grindelwald. She would sell her soul to see Dumbledore brought low and the coven eagerly brought her in on some of their plans. They wouldn't bring her in on everything major but found that she was useful in safely testing stories they were going to go with. Whatever stories they were planning to tell the world needed to be beyond reproach and if Nagini could see a flaw in them she would let them know and they could change it accordingly. Their parents were also useful for that but an outsider's opinion certainly didn't hurt. Nagini knew there was more to them than meets the eye but for her part she didn't care as they not only promised her revenge but aid with her current condition. It was far too late to outright treat the malediction but they did have the means of lessening the symptoms. Four months later and she was technically a human animagus.

Vance had finally come through with all the paperwork on the muggle side and the coven was ready to be seen in public. It was honestly some of cleverest bit of underhanded dealing they had ever encountered. The Ministry of Magic was still under the impression they were muggleborn as they now had a complete file of their fictional history. Most of the people who could corroborate their story were already dead and the rest under suitable memory charms. Barely a handful of the higher-ups in the mundane government would be able to notice anything out of place and if someone dug deep enough they would be left under the impression they had done a stint in Witness Protection and their original files were classified. Only the Queen herself had enough clearance to see through the deception and that was only if she bothered to look as even her heirs would be led to believe that their origins had been sealed by her. The coven intended to keep their head down on the mundane front for the remainder of her life just to play it safe.

They decided they couldn't wait for Voldemort to make a move forever and to start laying down more of the foundation for what they were trying to build. Security was their first concern so they made the bit of land they acquired unplottable to outsiders except by the Knight Bus that could take you to a security gate where the coven could screen for potential dangers. It was in the middle of nowhere and would ultimately be catering strictly to those already aware of magic though not necessarily those with magic as they factored in squibs and parents of muggleborn as their largest client base. For now it was three large interconnected buildings with room for eventually expanding into more. The first was an apartment complex that employees could live at. The two remaining buildings were based off of Harrods, one magical and the other mundane. Later on once they arranged for all the legalities they would open another that was a blend of the two in order to showcase that the two cultures are better together. Finally they planned on establishing a hospital, a school, and an orphanage at site once they acquired the necessary staff as even house elves couldn't do everything. The coven should be able to have it open and ready for business around the time the school year ends. The next step in the coven's plan was buying out and expanding the Knight Bus. It remained unchanged for purebloods but for everyone else there would soon be a fleet of cheaper and much more comfortable transports depending on your need. Purebloods would be able to apply for permission to use the improved transportation but would only be allowed if they showed no blood prejudices during an interview with a talented legilimens. The coven figured this would quickly force the Wizengamot to repeal the discrimination laws that were still on the books. It was a poor financial investment as they figured it would take nearly a century to just break even and that wasn't even taking inflation into account, but it wasn't about the money this time.

Also on the magical front it seemed that Dumbledore was seemingly unable to convince Snape to take up a teaching position without a dead Lily Evans to avenge as he had disappeared before he could be killed or arrested. Slughorn was still deadset on retiring next year for some reason. Lily would have applied for the position but wasn't likely to get it. Due to hiring policies whoever replaced Horace would also have to take over his post as Head of Slytherin. Each Head of House needed to be a former member of said house and teach one of five subjects considered part of the core; Charms, Defence Against the Dark Arts, Herbology, Potions, or Transfiguration. Even though Defence hadn't been held by a head since before Voldemort cursed the position, it was still technically an option. Dumbledore was quite aware of the curse and unlikely to assign Head of any house to someone under it. Half the time Dumbledore had even knowingly taken advantage of the curse just to get rid of someone he found irritating such as with Lockhart or Umbridge. While the coven held no sympathy for either of them, there were better means of dealing with them besides putting them in charge of teaching a bunch of kids. It would be difficult to remove the curse while Voldemort still lived but it was still doable especially with the resources Dumbledore had at his disposal. It would have been the right thing to do as the curse was dangerous to the staff and occasionally even the students but Dumbledore did what was easy instead and simply sacrificed people to it every single year.


	16. Modern Views

Daniel and Emma Granger were experiencing the wildest year of their lives. Not only was their daughter an actual bonafide witch but she was also apparently a time-traveler that had gone further back than even her fellow magicals had believed possible. The future had always looked so bright beforehand but to hear her speak of the reality of it would give them nightmares for a long time. That wasn't even touching upon the fact that there was currently an outright war happening that they had been previous unaware of as it was carefully hidden from the general populace while their kind were targeted for genocide. The magical government was dragging its feet and prolonging the war as most of the victims were unofficially viewed as second-class citizens.

Apparently they would have spent the next ten years struggling to figure out what was going on with all the strange happenings around Hermione until just before the magical community was ready to send their daughter off to school. As non-magicals there was little the pair of them could do to protect themselves from any sort of magical threat but the other parents involved were almost forceful with sharing their hospitality. In comparison to traveling through time the fact that their daughter had two husbands and four wives was barely worth batting an eye. Thus as of now they had five magical households that they were couch surfing between as one of the other six families had their home under renovation. They couldn't contribute to this "Fidelius" which seemed to be the cornerstone of every house's defence as they lacked a magical core but found themselves invaluable when bringing the others up to speed on the modern world.

It seemed magicals had a tendency to lose track of modern developments and most of the other parents were decades if not a century behind the times. Even those that originally came from modern society like Ted and Lily weren't quite as informed as the Grangers felt they should be. Their time-traveling children had the opposite problem in that they would use cultural references and mention advancements that were still decades away though some of them sounded amazing and they would ask about the possibility of introducing them much sooner. Everyday they would go out somewhere and explain something mundane to the other parents, everything from automobiles and planes to televisions and movie theaters. While neither of them could say they truly knew every detail about how they worked they seemed to know enough to help the others design a magical equivalent. Emma had taken a shop class in high school and Daniel had once seriously applied for a pilot's license as part of a dare so the pair of them didn't come off as the complete morons they were afraid of being.

They were also probably the only lottery winners in history who never played. Their daughter had bought a ticket before meeting them and because of her advance knowledge she won £15,010,730 before tax. It felt weird as their daughter didn't even seem to think twice before handing it to them to turn in but it would go a long way in helping them with a few ideas that had been put on the backburner since Hermione had been born. Ted had been gifted the next winning ticket a month later as he was the only other one of the parents who still had enough of a presence in the modern world to collect it. Even Lily had allowed her modern file to lapse as she seemed to have immersed herself in the magical world not to mention she was still somewhat in hiding at the moment. They quickly learned that even the slightest change had the potential but not the guarantee to drastically alter the future. The winning numbers that their daughter had traveled back with were now only accurate a little less than once a month. It was honestly fascinating as they felt it was more likely the winning numbers would either remain accurate forever or never be accurate again yet for some reason they were doing neither and the coven could only theorize as to why. At the rate they were going they would win nine or ten times a year though it was anyone's guess on how long it would last. The coven inevitably ended up anonymously giving away their winning tickets as to not draw attention to themselves. They didn't need the money and only played as it was a readily available resource to take advantage of. Half the time they would arrange for it to fall into the hands of a muggleborn's parents and the other half they would gift it to a charity of some sort.

Dan and Emma had sold their home and were apparating to their practice everyday. Usually one of the coven would join them for the day just to keep an eye on them but occasionally they would be accompanied by another one of the parents. Molly would provide them with a large basket of freshly baked cookies at the beginning of every week that were charmed to actually mildly clean teeth and their patients loved them. The legalities involved were questionable but not obviously illegal as Molly couldn't give them to those unaware of magic. Yet she could share them with the Grangers, who as non-magicals were under no such laws and had a bit more flexibility with the Statute provided they didn't advertise them as magical. Even under a microscope they would appear as regular snacks and it was unlikely people would make the connection as most of the people who consumed them ended up getting their teeth cleaned anyways. Additionally, they hired more staff and expanded their facility into a general practice that was now open 24/7 and could now treat issues such as broken bones, burns, or various standard illnesses. Pretty much anything short of cancer or a stroke and even those could be dealt with if they caught it early enough otherwise they would have to refer them to a more advanced facility. Emma knew this place would even be suitable for Lily to give birth were it not for the concern of the few death eaters still at large and unaccounted for.

The coven had explained how the British magical government had come to rely on taking advantage of impressionable mundane born and their guardians. It was deliberate to keep them in the dark until the last moment otherwise they would have time to realize just how badly they were being exploited. Luckily, it was perfectly legal although somewhat frowned upon to expose the parents of magical children as soon as they displayed their first signs of magic. The coven had elves monitoring every young magical of modern origins in the country and the moment they could confirm said child had magic they would visit the household and reveal the magical world. The Ministry of Magic would be in for a rude awakening as they wouldn't be able to continue capitalizing on modern society magicals not understanding their world for much longer. The Grangers found that they excelled at giving the speech and answering any important questions as they had recently been subjected to the same treatment and had a pretty good idea what the others were feeling. More than a few opted to leave the U.K. when informed of the pros and cons of various other magical governments and the coven would help arrange everything for them. They walked the other parents who choose to stay through all the magical paperwork needed to exempt themselves from certain fees and explained that as non-magicals they would never be hired by the Ministry or Hogwarts anyways so it wasn't exactly a sacrifice for them to be ineligible. Once their children reached adulthood they could still apply for such position and only after receiving them would they be subject to magical taxes. The best part was when they would be able to offer the parents employment. The coven was looking for all manner of employees from carpenters and mechanics to accountants and lawyers and would even make up the job on the spot if the coven found someone they really wanted to hire.


	17. Concerns

Dumbledore had finally caught a break. Even if he could never prove it, he had now managed to narrow down his likely suspect list for the murdered death eaters to just two families. The Delacours were the most likely as the ancient french family had suddenly taken a heavy interest in magical Britain around the same time everything started to go wrong for no obvious reason. The fact that they had allied themselves with both the Longbottoms and the Potters made it highly likely they were involved. The Delacours were known to be ruthless to their enemies and the current lord was even rumoured to have wed a veela. Merlin knows how much power that creature blood will bring to the family. A few bribes here and there at the Ministry revealed that they certainly had the pull to be behind at least some of his problems. What he couldn't understand was why they would involve themselves nor did he have a clue as to how they would have come upon the information that whoever was opposing him had.

It was for that reason he didn't dismiss the second possibility; The Coventry family. Emmeline had stumbled across their file at her work with the muggles as their name was coming up a quite a bit now at the Mundane-Magical relations office. Westley Wilhelm Coventry was a muggle who should have been dealt with decades ago but unfortunately he had slipped beneath the magical world's notice. He was already dead at this point but it wasn't too difficult to learn about him. He was a con artist, an expert on the "supernatural and occult" who had made a fortune preying upon gullible muggles. It wouldn't concern Dumbledore were it not for his children. A little under thirty years ago Coventry had gone to five different orphanages around the U.K. and adopted five daughters and two sons who all turned out to be muggleborn magicals. They had been raised around the world and thus had managed to go unnoticed by the magical governments. His seven children had only now been noticed shortly after they returned to Britain for their father's funeral in late September.

This was a nightmare. Muggles shouldn't raise muggleborn magicals. They would never understand wizarding customs, values, or even laws. The Coventry family wasn't treating magic with proper respect or reverence. Instead they were using it as a mere tool no different than a hammer or a nail. Usually the threat of never being able to find work at the Ministry, Hogwarts, or Diagon was enough to keep any clever muggleborn in line and follow magical laws and pay magical taxes but that didn't seem to concern them at all. Thanks to the channels they had gone through they could practically pick and choose which magical laws to follow as their were few limits the Wizengamot could actually impose on them. Regardless how much they might have wished and in some cases genuinely believed otherwise, the Wizengamot had zero authority over the non-magical government. Worse was they arrived during an influx of early muggleborn entering their society and Dumbledore doubted it was a coincidence as they were helping those same families exploit the very loopholes they had used. 

Most of the pureblood families in Britain had over the years unknowingly become dependent on the constant addition of muggleborns to their culture and while they would never admit it they now felt entitled to their spoils. The darker families were likely to start outright attacking the muggleborns once they realized they were losing them as a source of revenue and Dumbledore would do everything in his power to stop that including allow them to keep exploiting them. Dumbledore loathed killing and before Tom had found there was no excuse for it as he had even captured Gellert Grindelwald alive and didn't have to resort to something as barbaric as murder to neutralize the threat he posed. Dumbledore had used that small spark of good within his old friend to deal with him, that part of Gellert that truly wanted the best for the wizarding world and was simply misguided on how to obtain it. Tom had no such spark, every action he had taken was about gaining personal power or causing others as much pain and suffering as possible for no reason other than his own twisted amusement. His childish fear of death had warped his mind to the point Tom was hellbent on being the last living thing on the planet. Ironically, Dumbledore viewed Tom Riddle as already dead because it was easier on his conscience than acknowledging he was plotting the death of a student he failed if only he had seen the signs earlier.

Tom had joined the pureblood movement as that was where the power was at the time. Dumbledore was certain that Tom would happily side with the Coventry family as they were quickly shifting the balance of power. He would kill them sometime down the road as he wasn't the type to share power but in the short tern they could do a lot of damage with Tom's backing thanks to his knowledge of the dark arts and the many secrets of various families he had learned along the way. The Coventry family was just like the Delacours in that he didn't know why they would suddenly oppose him but had managed to find they were just as capable if not slightly more so than the ancient french family. Dumbledore's only hole in the theory was he couldn't figure out how either family knew so much of his plans to counter them as effectively as they were but it was obvious they had the resources to do so if they somehow had the means of gathering intelligence on him.

The Potters had been an ideal sacrifice to deal with Tom Riddle. Lily was a good person and had no need to repent for any of the actions she had taken while James had long ago made amends for a few youthful transgressions. Death was nothing to fear for them as it would have been the turning point of a new and more enlightened age. Perhaps most importantly a large portion of their friends and allies were already dead which would have made it easy to control their son. In the long run they might even thank him for reuniting them with those they had lost. Riddle's followers would have been free of his corrupting influence once he was out of the picture. As Chief Warlock, Dumbledore was in a perfect position to allow them another chance to become the upstanding citizens they could have otherwise been. Yet none of that happened, the Potters had fended him off and forced him to retreat. Tom was now hiding away in some dark corner licking his wounds and further plotting his next move. It provided the aurors an opportunity to target his supporters and Dumbledore would have applauded Barty if he wasn't killing so many of victims of Tom's trickery. Nearly one out of every six they went after was brought in as a corpse. The remainder were currently better off in Azkaban while Tom was still out there. Dumbledore would revisit them after dealing with their master. He repeatedly re-watched his memory of the prophecy involving Tom as his contacts at the Ministry had informed him that the record stored at the Hall of Prophecy was amongst the dozens that had not been restored since the mysterious explosion. Knowing the full prophecy was now one of his few remaining edges against Tom and he needed to figure out a means of taking full advantage of the fact.

He was brought out of his musing by a note that had been sent to him. As his deputy, Dumbledore had Minerva screen most of his mail. To Dumbledore this was a blatant threat but it had merely left her confused as he was the only one who understood the implications involved. "Rubeus Hagrid has been found innocent, restore his wand or we will." It was completely non-magical and printed with one of those muggle typewriters so he couldn't trace it but that was the least of his immediate concerns. Normally one would be forced to acquire a new wand if their old one was snapped, only the Elder Wand could fully restore a snapped wand. Whoever sent this message knew he had the Elder Wand and the threat was demanding him to use it to fix Hagrid's broken wand or they would claim the Elder Wand from him and do it themselves. While Dumbledore had tried to subtly prevent the investigation, he wasn't actually opposed to Hagrid getting his old wand back he just didn't feel it was worth exposing Tom and Voldemort as one and the same to do so. It had taken a favor or two but the investigation had cleared Hagrid without exposing the real culprit. At this point he would have fixed it for nothing but an oath of secrecy as he had honestly forgotten about it.


	18. The Coven's Mask

Emmeline Vance was literally having the time of her life. Every day brought something new ever since that time traveler walked into her office and brought her into the fold. The future would have been so miserable that a coven of seven magicals had abandoned everything just for a chance to change everything. Not that she would have been around for it as she would have been murdered in the next war by another member of the Order of the Phoenix just to maintain his cover with the death eaters. Vance wasn't afraid of dying as she was one of the few in the order who had killed and thus acknowledged turnabout was likely. It irked her to die for something so pointless and that was simply unacceptable.

Her fate was no longer certain and she threw herself into helping the coven. Creating alternate identities out of thin air was tricky but Vance wasn't a Slytherin for nothing. Luna had come-up with their names on the spot when filling out paperwork at the Ministry but Vance had ironed out the details and conjured an entire history to support the facade. Mr. Coventry was a recently deceased drifter and a complete work of fiction. He lived a long life out of a suitcase and had no immediate friends or family still around. He adopted seven children from various orphanages around the country who all happened to be magical. Constantly on the move allowed them to explain why nobody had every detected them until they settled back in England after their father's death. Producing a few files to support the cover was child's play with magic and a few memory charms later a couple dozen various individuals would now vaguely be aware of the Coventry family. Never anything directly but they would be recognized as "friends of a friend" or something similarly vague. Practically everybody who could prove otherwise was already dead. The muggle government knew she was magical thus gave her a lot of leeway and didn't look too closely at anything she did. Most of it was to preserve the Statute and they wanted deniability more than accountability. Only a handful of the higher-ups could potentially notice the deception but none of them were likely to go looking. Even if they were, Vance had put in the extra effort and would now have days if not weeks advance warning before they found anything. The Ministry of Magic had even less to work with as the muggles closely guarded their files and wouldn't dare let a magical not in their employ anywhere near them.

It had taken her nearly two full days to go through everything with their new identities to the coven. Each identity had enough in common with their old one it was easier for them to adjust but not enough for most people to make the connection to their younger selves. Ginny became Jenny, Luna became Lauren, Harry became Monty, Neville became Nate, Hermione became Jean, Fleur became Faith, and Dora became Torrie. They had new birthdates and the age difference between them was reduced somewhat as their new records had their births between 1949-51. Vance insisted they start celebrating the new dates even though they had been picked at random as it would make them more believable and to get used to their new places in the zodiac as that was where they were most likely to slip.

Best part was given Vance's job with the muggles she was in an ideal position to feed Dumbledore the story they wanted him to believe. He was fundamentally lazy and would believe her when she told him everything checked out especially since to any other magical it would. It would be accepted because nobody in their right mind would falsely claim to be a muggleborn magical in Britain. People were far more likely to falsely claim to be a pureblood like Voldemort or Umbridge. Vance wanted to deal with Dolores immediately when she learned what she would do in the future but the coven didn't know for certain whether she was actually guilty of anything yet and instead had someone looking into her for now. She found it mildly horrifying that Umbridge barely made it into their top ten as far as concerns went. Voldemort whose real name was Tom was their current focus as not only was he dangerous but they had already changed enough that the coven didn't know where he was.

Lily had yet to leave the safety of a Fidelius for nearly a year now. She was at a difficult stage in her pregnancy as the last six months it would have been dangerous to apparate or portkey anywhere. They had practically converted one of the bedrooms at the Burrow into a hospital and had her monitored around the clock by not just a member of the coven but at least three elves. In Vance's mind it might be a touch overprotective but the coven clearly didn't believe such a thing existed. It remained to be seen how much of this protectiveness would continue once she had given birth but Vance imagined much of it. Lily had looked ready to pop last time Vance had seen her so she suspected the birth would be happening any day now.

Most of Voldemort's supporters were either in Azkaban or had somehow secured a pardon. Less than half his inner circle was still unaccounted for. Pettigrew was still missing though most of the country was under the impression Voldemort had killed him. Everyone in the magical community knew he was a rodent animagus so if he was using that form to hide it was at a muggle residence. The coven was still clinging to the hope he would turn himself in if he thinks he could play the victim and also didn't have the heart to tell his mother. She was an old woman who would be dead in a few years, at which point they would revisit the problem. His fellow Marauders wanted to ask him why and thus were willing to stay silent for now. It wasn't even much of a stretch as the coven were under the impression that the initial betrayal had been forced but the subsequent betrayals had eventually become voluntary.

Targeted attacks against muggleborn homes plummeted as the Ministry went from hearing about multiple instances a day to one maybe two a month. The days were getting brighter now and it had nothing to do with the seasons or weather. The Potters were being declared heroes again but at least this time it was for wounding Voldemort and leaving his followers vulnerable rather than as martyrs to later be used in guilting their son. The Minister had tried declaring the war won but surprisingly was shot down by Dumbledore himself. After everything she learned of the future the coven had to explain to her that Dumbledore had good intentions, they just didn't matter as he was delusional to the point he might as well be a bad guy. He wanted to redeem death eaters more than save their victims. She didn't give a fuck about that and if anything actually opposed redemption as many of their actions were utterly unforgivable in her mind. That wasn't why Vance joined the war, she wanted to kill death eaters for what they had done to her friends, she wanted to kill them for the horrible image they had given Slytherins everywhere, she wanted to kill them so they would never bother anyone again. Though she would settle for shipping them off to Azkaban. Vance only joined Dumbledore's order because she trusted the other members to watch her back. She would have been an auror were it not for the numbers of death eater spies and sympathizers within their ranks. She wouldn't mind joining the aurors now considering how effective the coven had been at dealing with the hidden death eaters but Vance knew she could do a lot more good for the others right where she was now. She was currently going through a list of things the coven was ready to share and determining what could be introduced to the muggle world.


	19. Potter Heights

The Potters had been relatively well off for centuries but James was about to bring them to new heights and the best part was he was doing it while simultaneously ruining their supposed "purity." The magical community had long ago adjusted to eking out a profit by taking advantage of the mundane world while never contributing to help with any of their problems. The coven however was revolutionary in that not only would they be making far more it was a mutually beneficial relationship that left both parties better off than before. As of now they literally had hundreds of house elves going to school. They would use magic to remain unseen while they attended classes from colleges around the country. They weren't learning as fast as the students because they couldn't ask any questions but usually a student would ask for clarification if something was too difficult to follow so they were still learning from the experience. The coven estimated it would be around five years that they were all competent architects, chefs, chemists, doctors, engineers, mechanics, or whatever other profession appealed to the individual. Every elf was ordered to let them know if they wanted their freedom but so far none had taken the offer. Having a good idea of where demands and technology would progress meant they had plenty of prime investment opportunities and wouldn't be hurting for funds anytime soon.

Goblins at Gringotts could invest their wealth if asked to do so but had limited opportunities and took the lion's share of the profits in fees. Most purebloods considered finances to be beneath them and happily paid the cost just to avoid muggles. Despite popular belief to the contrary goblins weren't that much different from wizards or muggles. There was no accurate stereotype to describe all of them any more than there was to describe all wizards. Some were scheming and greedy thieves, others were almost fanatically honourable warriors but most were somewhere in between. Those employed at Gringotts tended to lean slightly more towards schemers as the decent ones were usually taken advantage of. It was better off to cut out the middleman and invest directly into partial ownership of various companies. It still annoyed James that Dumbledore would have liquidated his assets and just thrown them in a vault for Harry if something happened to him and Lily.

The last months had easily been the most hectic of James Potter's entire life. He and his wife would have been dead and their son left to rot in the care of Lily's sister if not for a version of their son going back in time itself to prevent it. Dumbledore had let slip a portion of his plan and James exploded at the old headmaster. James needed to make sure that fate never happened to his son and forced Dumbledore into an Unbreakable Vow. When the coven examined the Vow they pointed out that there was still room for him to maneuver with and it enraged James to think that even after being expressly told not to do something stupid, Dumbledore still felt it was a valid option.

James had just started ranting about going to the Dursleys and dealing with them permanently when he was hit with a stunner. The coven revived him hours later to let him know that they had taken care of it. His son had killed them and made it look like an accident. James surely felt like he was ready to slaughter them but in the back of his mind he didn't know if he had it in him to commit premeditated murder and the kick to the gut was that his son had done this for him. His son had been so determined not to let him kill the Dursleys that he had done it himself and that stirred all kinds of emotions within him. James vowed that young Harry would never suffer even a fraction of the pain his time-traveling counterpart had.

This unfortunately had one glaring flaw that the coven had overlooked. It suddenly became extremely difficult to bring more into the true fold. Anybody that managed to learn that the coven were time-travelers and who they had been last time around could easily pin the Dursley's murder on them. Killing the death eaters had been self-defence even if they had originally been lured into a trap but Marge, Petunia, and Vernon were no threat and had been dispatched simply to tie-up a loose end. Vance had wanted to bring in Amelia Bones especially after hearing what happened to her but the coven knew she would never go along with killing someone for something they hadn't even done yet. Even Harry wouldn't haven't killed the Dursleys just yet if he hadn't been so concerned about stopping him.

He had half a mind to turn himself in and take the fall for his son but as of now it was unneeded. That was not even getting into the damage it would to his family reputation if he had murdered a trio of muggles and instead he scoured for an alternative. The muggle government had written the deaths off as the accident it appeared to be; thanks to the Statute that wouldn't change even if some of the higher-ups learned it was a magical murder. His only concern was with the Ministry. He needed a story that the Ministry would believe that could later on be used to explain their early deaths to anyone the coven wanted to bring in fully. James had never been good at lying and as a ruthless prankster had proudly served his earned detentions during his Hogwarts years. He could keep a secret as it wasn't difficult to not say anything but he always felt it wasn't the Gryffindor way to outright lie.

His mind drifted back to the coven's immediate concern of Lily's pregnancy and the upcoming birth. He still didn't know if it was a boy or a girl as Lily had insisted she wanted it to be a surprise to which the coven reluctantly agreed. James didn't even know no matter what he tried to trick the coven into revealing but was assured the child was perfectly healthy. The elves weren't any help as they refused to even speak of the matter and none of the other parents were interested in getting on Lily's bad side by helping him.

It turned out that Lily of all people had pulled a prank on him and enlisted everyone's help to keep him in the dark and scrambling for clues. James laughed loudly at the revelation as it reminded him why he so madly loved this woman. His daughter Marlene Lilian Potter was born July 30th 7:57 PM and was joined by her brother Benjamin Charles Potter just over five hours later. His daughter shared a birthday with Neville while his sons shared their own as they were separated by exactly two years. The older version of his son looked at them with the love of a brother even though it was unlikely he would ever he able to become more than a favored uncle to them and it broke his heart. This man was a son he could never publicly acknowledge or show pride in despite every instinct in him screaming for him to do both. He needed to start thinking of him as Monty no matter how much it hurt. Harry was still just a little boy that could grow to become anything he wanted. Monty was just what would have happened had he never come back. Monty had been forced to become the soldier he was, Harry would always be free to choose his own path and forge his own destiny.


	20. Stupid Problems Require Stupid Solutions

Luna was internally chuckling at the scheme that Ted had devised to retrieve the Diadem undetected. The elves would be able to slip past the wards by pigging back off any member of the coven who managed to enter and stay on the grounds for at least three hours. The security at Hogwarts was lackluster at best and meant more to alert the Headmaster than to actually prevent anyone from entering. Dumbledore would be alerted one way or another to them being there but the plan involved distracting him while the elves went about their work.

As an established muggleborn there were few wizarding laws that she was subject to. The coven had instead opted to be liable to mundane law and the only wizarding rules she had to follow were the ones the Queen said she did but there were still a handful of things the coven needed to be careful with. One of the most trivial was actually about to come in very useful. She couldn't be hired by the Ministry or Hogwarts nor could she even volunteer but she was still subject to community service if she broke one of the few laws that the coven was still accountable for.

Ted had thoroughly gone over the laws with a penalty of community service at Hogwarts and found one that fit the bill for what they needed quite well. Luna had once again gone to the Ministry to purchase more elves. After sending them off to the other coven members for instruction she casually spit a wad of gum on the floor in front of several Ministry employees. She smiled widely as they wrote-up her ticket for littering. Twenty-five galleon fine and six hours of community service at Hogwarts was exactly what she was shooting for.

All eyes would be on her as she intended to stir-up enough of a shitstorm to allow their elves to empty the Room of Requirement unnoticed. There wasn't much work for her to do as the school year was out but the wards eventually grew accustomed to her enough to allow the coven's elves to enter. She excused herself to use the restroom and dealt with the basilisk. Entering the Chamber of Secrets wasn't that challenging and since she wasn't technically a parseltongue the beast stayed asleep. For all intents and purposes the basilisk was brain dead at this point and no more than a computer that Voldemort could use to resume his rampage at any given time. Killing it while it slept was a mercy.

The next step was having a handful of elves apparate the carcass right in the middle of the Great Hall before joining the others in emptying the Room of Requirement. The teachers still took their meals there and it was almost lunchtime. Last time Dumbledore had quietly salvaged the corpse and had it rendered down. According to his journals the profits had been set aside "just in case" despite the fact that it was a literal fortune that could have been used to drastically improve the school. Putting the body on full display insured at least some of it would immediately be spent on the school.

Dumbledore was still looking into Slughorn's replacement so for now the man was still around. Say what you will about Horace Slughorn but he was incredibly mercenary when it came to potion ingredients and might even reconsider his retirement with a basilisk to render. The charter was extremely specific on donations of this sort. The headmaster and each head of house was entitled to twenty-percent of the profits each as long as the purchases were for the school. Dumbledore had illegally gotten around this by keeping it quiet and thus he only had to split it with Snape. The coven practically guaranteed it would make the front page this time around.

The old headmaster obviously suspected her but she played the role of innocent just a little to deviously and was practically daring him to call her out. Luna kept giving him the runaround and wasting his time while the elves went about their work undisturbed. He probably could prove she was responsible but basilisks were considered so dangerous that it wasn't illegal to kill one regardless of circumstance and Luna just wanted to keep his attention focused on her. It was fun toying with the old puppet master and she easily understood the appeal but she did have one side-objective other than wasting both their time. Luna held back the smirk as she felt his mental intrusion test her barriers and she quickly worked around them sending him on a wild goose chase that was borderline vomit-inducing. Her face showed no signs of acknowledgement as she felt his wand change allegiance and she was relatively sure he was too nauseous to notice it as well. The Elder Wand would still work well enough for him but he was no longer the master it truly accepted. 

Ultimately her six hours were up and she bid the staff a good day and handed McGonagall a note about the curse Voldemort had placed. Luna had been analyzing it the whole time Dumbledore was interrogating her. It was thoroughly interwoven into the wards of the school and Luna couldn't imagine he had done this unnoticed but she now had another theory as to why Dumbledore kept it around in addition to laziness. The curse was actively taking a small portion of his power in order to maintain itself. The power it used was incredibly small but it still weakened him even if only by a negligible amount. Lifting the curse would take resources, time, and favors that Dumbledore would most likely rather spend elsewhere. The best he had done was changing the classroom at one point but that didn't work as the curse was attached to the class itself and was deeply ingrained throughout the whole castle. Luna had explained in the note that until it was removed the best they could do would be to bypass it by switching to the American spelling instead as that tricked it into targeting a class that no longer existed. This would serve as an adequate test for Professor McGonagall as she was extremely loyal to the headmaster. While she was protective of her students she lacked the foresight to help them before problems arose and instead was strictly a reactionary force. She was a fine teacher that the coven still had fond memories of but she needed to see that Dumbledore wasn't always right especially when he usually wasn't.

Their elves had finished sorting through everything and much of it could be returned to somebody. They had no interest in stealing from somebody still around so the elves delivered what they could to the previous owners though Hermione's inner bibliophile had them making copies of any books before doing so. Most of what remained was scrap material that the coven planned on recycling but there were a fair amount of valuable items that they would put to much better use than simply wasting away at Hogwarts. The Longbottoms had the political clout to arrange a charity auction with many of their finds. It would be held at the Ministry as they still didn't want anyone at Longbottom Manor anytime soon. Half the money would go to the aurors, and the rest to St. Mungos. It wouldn't be for nearly a month as they still wanted to deal with the Locket beforehand and it would be a while before the basilisk fangs entered circulation. The coven wanted to keep the fact that they already had them a secret as Kreacher had decent odds of getting caught after completing the last order Regulus gave him. The coven collected Rowena's Diadem and prepared to gather the proof of Voldemort's other Horcruxes. Depending on where they were the coven would probably make the reveal public at the auction.


	21. Lupin's Folly

The coven just didn't understand. They came from a time with multiple preventive measures and even a few cures but before now being a werewolf was the worst fate imaginable. While those days where you were the wolf were the worst you theoretically were contagious for weeks afterwards and even a few days beforehand. If you had any decency you spent most of your life afraid of accidentally transmitting it to anyone nearby. Remus had spent years developing the habits that made sure he never infected another soul. Even a single scratch could transmit parts of the curse and enough of them could be just as infectious as a bite.

They shared a vaccine with the Ministry and even the muggle government. It couldn't cure and in fact would be fatal to those already afflicted but it would stay in your body for seventy years and prevent an infection from taking hold. The Potter family had to claim credit as nobody would believe it otherwise and that would pave the way for the two outright cures. Remus smiled, there was no pride in being a werewolf. No matter what Greyback had preached it was a disease, the only pride would be in controlling it and managing the symptoms, not succumbing to bloodlust.

Remus knew that if all his friends were dead or imprisoned he would disappear. The others didn't understand it was better for everyone's sake to just find some quiet out the way hole and not bother anyone. He sometime caught glimpses of them judging him but he understood. It would seem irresponsible to those that didn't know what being a werewolf was like. It was such a huge part of his identity that Remus didn't know what he would be once he was cured but he longed to find out.

Treatment would be brutal but it would eventually free him. The ointment smelled like cooked sewage while the potion tasted like lemonade and cigarette ash. The coven still had not established their network of global safehouses as he would have to spend seven years constantly on the move in order to kill the wolf. Remus used his contacts in that community to locate Greyback's most recent victims and provide a pair of young cousins the accelerated cure. In the meantime spending the full moon passed out on a field somewhere with a cold breeze wasn't so bad.

Both cures were eventually shared and like the coven suspected the accelerated one was declared "dark" and required a license from the Ministry to perform. The license wasn't much as it was more of a fee than a test and the coven could just ignore it altogether. It was stressed that it only worked if you caught the exact werewolf that infected the person and not just any werewolf would do. Thus several of those that thought like Fenrir found themselves hunted down by their victims. The ICW was establishing a network of facilities to oversee the longer treatment method. Only a handful would be eligible for the trial run that would be ready sometime early next year but once it proved effective seven years later there would be room for many more in the next batch. Some wizarding families were already investing in such facilities now as not everyone wanted to wait over seven years just to start a seven year treatment. The coven knew that the longer treatment worked as they had decades of proof but sadly couldn't use it. The shortest treatment had proved effective within a month and thus the wizarding community was a little more believing that the seven year treatment would work as well.

Dumbledore had done him another favor and used his influence to get Remus in on the trial run for the treatment. The coven was being too harsh on him. They had the advantage of hindsight and knowing that some of his plans didn't work out but they were clearly done with the best intentions. Remus may have agreed not to inform Albus about the coven but he was determined to prove Dumbledore's worth to the coven so they would tell him themselves. The headmaster saw the best in everyone even those that didn't deserve it, that was why he allowed a werewolf to attend his school. Was it his fault everything had begun to fall apart after his death? Was it really so bad to be optimistic that your opponents would see their mistakes and changes their ways?

He was still grateful the coven had come back and saved his friends. His initial reaction had been kneejerk and hostile as it was going against the accepted laws of magic but when he thought about it the only thing that mattered was that it had saved James, Lily, and given him a niece plus another nephew. They were alive, everything else was negotiable. Remus would humour their reservation about Dumbledore simply because he didn't see any real harm in it.

Vance and him had just finished a day of recruiting the outcasts and disenfranchised. Muggleborns along with their immediate family, squibs, and even creatures. The coven insisted he visits Harrods at least once a week to get a better idea of what and whom they are looking for. Each visit he finds something new. The idea of running a magical equivalent was obviously going to make a lot of money. Remus felt the only reason it hadn't been done before was the extremely high upfront costs involved but the coven insisted it was just that wizards weren't that creative. He was doing a customary walk through Diagon to clear his head and gather his thoughts when he smelled something he would recognize anywhere, Wormtail.

It was faint meaning he wasn't too close but it was fresh. Scanning the scene he glimpsed someone who might have been him duck into an alley and Remus bolted after the shadow. He immediately cursed his impulsiveness as he was hit with an array of dark curses the instant he turned the corner. It was a goddamn ambush and he quickly fell under the barrage of spellfire from Bellatrix along with her husband and another he didn't recognize. Remus awoke chained, cold, and groggy in some death eater's dungeon. Voldemort was there and Remus briefly smirked at the scar he had given him on Halloween. Voldemort look positively feral and Remus knew he must have inadvertently infected him that night. Normally a few scratches given on a night leading up to the full moon would give him a few trait at best but for some reason Voldemort appeared and smelled fully infected though the implication quickly set in. The coven had publicly released the cure and Remus himself was an essential ingredient for said cure. Remus braced himself and accepted that he would probably die tonight. Unlike Peter, he would happily lay down his life to protect his friends. The wolf does not betray the pack. It would give him the strength and will to die defying him. Voldemort could tear his body apart and the wolf would never yield. His secrets would follow him to the grave. The life he would have had if the coven hadn't returned wasn't that great and his only regret was that he would never see his son. Remus would curse, scream, and taunt but he would never beg or cry. The wolf was proud and maybe for the first time in his life it might come in useful.


	22. Ghosts & Goblins

It didn't make sense. The ointment that cured lycanthropy required the exact werewolf that infected the patient. That point had been stressed at every stage and had even been used as part of the justification for requiring a license to produce it. Remus Lupin would never infect anybody and the fact that he was a werewolf was not widely known. Yet here he was torn apart in a surgical fashion that the coven immediately recognized as being harvested for the treatment. His body had been left in dumpster behind the Three Broomsticks.

The coven received a fierce lecture from their parents about not taking anything for granted as Moony had now died over a decade before his time. Lily may have been mad at him for the things he would have done but even she didn't want him dead, especially for something he wasn't going to do this time around. They managed to collect a sample of him and keep it on stasis in case young Dora wanted to have Teddy again once she had been made aware of the coven's true identities.

They spent the entire day trying to determine who targeted him and were coming up empty when the answer revealed itself. Remus Lupin returned as a Hogwarts ghost and explained exactly what happened. The coven made sure that aurors were called to conduct the interview as Dumbledore still viewed Hogwarts as his playground and didn't like others interfering in what he deemed his business. Wormtail's betrayal and subsequent survival were now in the open as he had lured his old friend into an ambush where Voldemort had murdered him.

This was monumental as it was the first confirmed sighting of Voldemort since Halloween and it meant he was probably still in the country. The coven cursed Lupin for not informing anybody that he had wounded Voldemort in a manner that had the potential to infect him as they would have taken higher precautions if they had known he was a werewolf but he had been too ashamed of his actions to bother telling anyone. He has chosen to become a ghost this time around so that he could inform the coven, knowing full well this was permanent.

Remus took his new lot rather well all things considered. As a ghost he had much greater control over the curse and could change his form at will while retaining his senses regardless of the moon's phases. His ghostly body showed no signs of the torture he had endured as he wasn't like Nick who took pride in his injuries though he did joke that had he known at the time he would have worn a nicer suit. Moony had immediately gone about establishing himself in the ghost hierarchy by stealing the Bloody Baron's sword and using it to fully detach Nick's head so that he could join the Headless Hunt. He became one of only two ghosts that kept Peeves in line.

Dumbledore used this opportunity to hire him on as the new professor for Defense Against the Dark Arts. As a ghost he was probably safe from the curse but McGonagall kept the American spelling as an extra layer of precaution. Dying did have the upside of curing Lupin's hero worship of Dumbledore. Remus had been greatly shocked at out how cavalier and nonchalant the headmaster acted about the whole thing as it seemly didn't fully register to him just what happened. The headmaster had been more concerned about Pettigrew possibly returning to the light than Lupin dying during his interview. Dumbledore viewed everything as a game and considered redeeming his opponents as his means of winning. Remus took the position just to help keep an eye on Hogwarts as Dumbledore clearly didn't care about the day to day running of his school.

Lupin convinced the coven not to attempt interfering with Voldemort's cure. They had wanted to use his condition against him or at the very least try to stop him from treating himself but Remus had successfully argued that Voldemort was a vindictive bully who if he couldn't cure himself would happily spread the infection more than Greyback ever did. His reputation already took a bit of a hit as even the cured werewolves still faced minor discrimination. Voldemort's hardcore followers wouldn't care but it would make it more difficult for him to reach out and recruit allies.

Rowena's Diadem was used to scry on the remaining Horcruxes and the coven struck gold. All of Voldemort prior Horcruxes had been in a vault under Malfoy Manor when the diadem had been defiled into a Horcrux. The coven doubted they were all still there but it would put some pressure on Lucius and with the current political environment they figured he had even odds of being able to bribe his way out of trouble.

When the charity auction finally started enough of the basilisk had been sold off that the coven was comfortable giving Kreacher what he needed to destroy the locket. The old elf had somehow managed to complete the task without his masters knowing as he visited them an hour later offering his sincerest gratitude. This would bring the Ministry into the loop on the cup and the diary and with luck the coven could steer them in the needed direction. Gringotts wouldn't turn over access to one of their vaults especially under such pretense as a potential Horcrux as the goblins didn't care as they considered it a wizarding problem. Thanks to the treaties they wouldn't provide much help. If you could prove something was stolen (something the coven could do with Hufflepuff's Cup) the best the goblins would do to help is inform you whether it was in one of their vaults after paying a substantial fee. They would neither retrieve it nor tell you which vault it was in as that wasn't their concern. The goblins weren't liable for storing any stolen property though the Ministry could stake out the building and arrest any wizard they suspected of leaving with stolen belongings.

Immediately after the auction before anyone could leave the coven revealed the Horcrux and performed the spell showing everyone in attendance that there were others stashed at Malfoy Manor. They had waited until the end for two reasons; to make sure and include anybody that was fashionably late and so that they would have the opportunity to bleed Lucius Malfoy of some of his coin giving him just a little less to work with. Aurors escorted Malfoy to his home where they retrieved the diary but the cup was nowhere to be found. The Potters offered a thousand galleon reward no questions asked for the retrieval of any of the Horcruxes to the Ministry and challenged any enemy of Voldemort to match it. By the end of the night any Horcrux turned in was worth fifteen thousand galleons so the coven eagerly gifted Arthur Weasley the ring to collect the bounty on. It wouldn't be long till even the Ministry would think to check with Gringotts.


	23. Old Man's Mercy

These muggleborn were holding their own and openly opposing Riddle. Dumbledore had suspected him to have made a Horcrux but to have created five of these dark abominations with his tendency for Founder artifacts just reaffirmed his acceptance that Tom could no longer be saved. That was not even factoring in that he may have created additional ones as Ravenclaw's Diadem only had a link to those previous created.

He couldn't believe it. They were bringing Tom's secrets into the open and attacking him with brutality to rival his own. Dumbledore couldn't prove it but he knew they were responsible for the murders involving Tom's followers. Tom Riddle's Diary left no room for doubt who Voldemort had been prior to taking up the mantle of Dark Lord and Albus had to be careful to cover his tracks in the effort he had spent to prevent the reveal. On the bright side there were only two unaccounted for Horcruxes even if Tom was likely to create more soon enough. He could have easily used the murder of Remus to tear his soul apart for the creation of the next one and Tom wasn't above murdering one of the countless and nameless drifters throughout the world if he wanted more.

Dumbledore didn't believe for a second that Arthur Weasley had just stumbled across the Gaunt Family Ring. The Weasleys were by far the poorest family amongst the new alliance forming and he felt Arthur had simply been allowed to turn it in for the reward. The Coventry family made their fortune in the muggle world and the fact that they now had access to magic meant their wealth would only grow. Lauren Coventry had been sentenced to six hour community service at Hogwarts and looking over the initial report it was obvious she had intentional gotten the ticket. He wished that he had realized it at the time as he didn't put much thought into some witch who would scrub the bathrooms for a day. She had used that opportunity to kill Slytherin's basilisk and he couldn't understand why. All proceeds went to the school yet she could have easily claimed the body herself. Dumbledore had been meaning to get around to it for years but something always seemed to come up that drew his attention away from it. Interviewing her left him with more questions and no answers as she dodged his inquiries like someone with decades of experience. Something felt off ever since speaking with Lauren and he couldn't quite place it.

It didn't take long for him to deduce it was a distraction of some sort but Dumbledore didn't determine what it was a distraction for until the Ministry charity auction weeks later. She had ransacked the Room of Requirement. Nothing in there belonged to anyone and Dumbledore had left it alone in case he suddenly needed something but now it was being sold off to help fund the aurors. That was not something Dumbledore wanted, the aurors were more interested in so called justice than forgiveness or redemption. They thus didn't understand what was truly important in the long run. A well-funded auror force was also less vulnerable to bribery or intimidation in case Dumbledore ever needed to utilize their services.

Tom was a long lost cause so Dumbledore instead focused his efforts to redeeming his followers. Peter Pettigrew was a bit of surprise and should be an easy target for redemption. Tom had probably forced the weak boy into his side or lured him in with the promise of power. His involvement in killing his friend and subsequently skulking back to the shadows confirmed he was trapped in Voldemort's grip. Remus was understandably upset right now at his old friend but he would come around. As a ghost, Remus had the rest of eternity to forgive Peter. Albus brought him in as part of his staff at Hogwarts because he was genuinely curious if the curse Tom had left would have any effect on him, the fact that he would be an exceptional instructor was just a bonus.

Albus returned his focus to the Coventry family. He had to stop them from murdering so many people that could still be made to see the error of their ways. Their victims needed to be cleansed of their darkness before they would be ready for the next great adventure. Being raised in the muggle world clearly taught them not to value human life as they weren't even aware of the harm they were doing to their souls with their crusade. Dumbledore needed to kill this idea before more of the muggleborns were drawn into their way of thinking. The pureblood discrimination caused a lot of resentment and Dumbledore devoted much of his time as headmaster into attempting to prevent that hatred from turning to violence.

There was talk of them being the first "muggleborn supremacists" as they had bought out and improved the infamously hadzerous Knight Bus but only for muggleborns and their families. The pureblood supremacists could never win in the long term as they lacked the numbers but muggleborns on the other hand outnumbered their pureblood counterparts five to one and the half-bloods outnumbered them by nearly twenty to one. The pureblood advantage of backroom dealings could only go so far against someone that didn't play by the rules they set.

The muggles had made enormous advancements in the last hundred years and the wizarding world was honestly behind the times. Dumbledore didn't know the specifics but he knew that if these muggle breakthroughs could be applied to magic the results would be unprecedented power on whoever controlled it. Unfortunately the morality of muggles had not improved at all in the same time frame and they were still ruthless enough to win a war should one ever breakout again. The muggle technology already matched and occasionally surpassed the wizarding variant in many fields and would only further improve in the coming years. The last conflict between wizards and muggles had been disastrous and this time the muggles had the means of quite literally destroying the world and every living thing on it.

His concern heightened when he learned just how much muggle influence they were attempting to bring into the wizarding world and how little power he had to stop them. They couldn't work at Hogwarts so they were making their own. They were unlikely to find work in Diagon so they again went about making their own version. How long until they make their own Ministry? The Coventrys were also including the non-magical parents of magicals in their schemes and it was an alarming powerbase they had quickly established. Still they seemingly had good intentions and were currently devoting plenty of resources against Tom so Dumbledore would let the two sides weaken each other out a bit before confronting the winner. Maybe he could convince them that what they were doing was wrong as it would provoke too many people and result in too many deaths. Perhaps saving the world again would be enough on his soul that he could face his sister when he finally reunites with her and begs for forgiveness.


	24. Le Fay Lodgings, du Lac Center of Learning, Wyllt Foundlings, Pendragon Bazaar, Coventry Creations Inc.

With Remus dead and a confirmed sighting of Voldemort, security concerns skyrocketed. Every unknown muggleborn in the country had an elf keeping watch for a least three hours a days as the number of muggleborn they were introducing to magic tripled. Muggles and muggleborn were some of Voldemort's prime targets as they made up roughly eighty percent of his and his follower's victims. At least in the case of the muggleborn they could be informed of the danger out there and hopefully accept the coven's offer of protection.

The coven hastily went to work on establishing a handful of tenements behind top notch security wards on the land they now owned. The dwellings varied from studio to five bedroom/two bathroom. Each tenement took up no more space than a city block but thanks to expansion charms they could house up to two hundred families each. This was an expensive operation particularly when the coven had no intention of recouping their loss here as the rentals were just enough to cover taxes plus upkeep. Cars not belonging to the Knight Bus still couldn't get anywhere near them so they built a secondary facility to serve as a car park that could quickly shuttle people between both locations. House elves served as porters for everything from groceries to furniture with a combination of goblins and retired aurors working security around the clock. Roughly a third of the residents didn't even bother utilizing the car park as it wasn't any more expensive for them to utilize Knight Bus vehicles and a driver anytime they needed one. That amount would only increase as the coven knew insurance, gasoline, and automobiles themselves would soon become much more costly, in comparison the coven's costs would remain stagnant for the next twenty years at least.

Abusing a house elf or any employee for that matter was one of the few things that could get you kicked out and left to fend for yourself so the residents treated them with a fair amount of respect. Since most of the residents were from a modern background it was easy enough to teach them not to view them as inferior from the start like the wizarding community was so fond of doing. Respect and common decency also had the added benefit of making them stronger and healthier. Long ago it had just been common sense to treat them well but somewhere along the line it became a measure of status to intentionally treat them poorly. It was declaring to your peers that you were so wealthy and powerful that you could abuse them, the coven found that horrifying on multiple levels.

Fleur and Hermione took the lead on the summer school they were also working on and managed to get it operational within weeks of Hogwarts end of school year even if most of the students wouldn't be enrolled immediately as not everybody was entirely sold on the idea nor were all the muggleborn brought into the fold just yet. The first years would be chaotic as hell because they would have to include older students who were uneducated and try to get them up to an acceptable point by the time they graduated. Unlike Hogwarts, this was a twelve year plan that started at age seven. Those older than seven would have to play catchup as they would still start in the first year but the coven was willing to work with them as long as they were willing to put in the effort. There were also no "houses" as the coven felt they served little purpose other than sports and considered them to be a relic from an earlier time. That didn't however stop them from using Gryffindor as a synonym for reckless, Hufflepuff for friendly, Ravenclaw for smart, and Slytherin for devious. As of now they had twenty four classes. Half were magical and half mundane. Half were considered core and the other half elective.. Each subject had four teachers that way each instructor was only responsible for three years rather than all of them. Depending on how popular this school becomes they might bring in more teachers later on so that each would only be responsible for two years. Each teacher being responsible solely for one year was unlikely to happen anytime soon but the coven didn't outright deny the possibility one day. This was another operation that was burning a hole in their pocket as the coven wasn't willing to charge anyone to attend. Factoring in administrators, nurses, and on call substitutes they already had a staff of a hundred twenty five. Eventually they would have fundraisers to recover some of the expenses but it wasn't an immediate concern.

Neville and Harry were in charge of the orphanage as both of them had plenty of experience on what not to do. Most of the children were squibs or muggleborn but a handful were half-bloods and even a pair of purebloods that were orphans this time around. Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle had lost their parents as the coven had unknowingly killed them months ago. They might be purebloods but they were considered very low on the totem pole and abandoned after others pilfered what passed for their fortunes. They had orphaned other purebloods but their names were a bit higher up and thus taken care of by their surviving peers. The coven didn't hold any ill will towards them as they were barely out of nappies at this point and could be steered away from the supremacist movement.

Luna, Dora, and Ginny supervised the department stores they were opening up. The coven had chosen to accept several different currencies both magic and mundane from around the world even if most of their clients paid in galleons or pounds. This was also an opportunity to introduce the concept of gift cards to the magical community. Unfortunately this was considered a lower priority and thus weren't ready for opening until twelve days before the Hogwarts school year began so most of the students had already made the necessary purchases from Diagon. This hurt a little bit because the stores were one of their few ventures they intended to actually profit from but they still had enough for one more project they wanted to start on as soon as possible. Even if doing so left them with barely a tenth of what wealth they came here with. 

It started with laying down thirteen wardstones at the bottom of the ocean. These filtered glass, plastic, and other various toxins from the sea at a rate of roughly seven tons an hour before magically transporting it to a facility where they had an army of elves ready to rework it into usable materials ranging from textiles to construction surplus. This was barely a drop in countering the environmental damage but for now it was the best they could do unnoticed. Slow expansion would happen every year as they could sell these raw ingredients to factories and begin earning back the fortune they had spent. It wouldn't be long before they had to reach out and sell their surplus internationally. Once they had a larger and more visible fortune they would expand their portfolio into other fields if for no other reason than to take advantage of any overlap as they themselves obviously wouldn't be asking any questions they didn't want to answer. The coven had to be especially careful with this as it was their only holding that dealt strictly with the mundanes as everything else catered to those who were at least aware of magic even if they didn't possess it.

All and all, things were looking up despite Remus dying. Voldemort was on the run and his followers were either in Azkaban, hiding, or amongst the lucky few that got away with pleading Imperius and denouncing him. The coven knew that could easily come back to seriously hurt them one day so moved on to bigger fish. Dumbledore had made subtle inquiries into their activities but Vance had managed to keep him happy with useless information. They still wouldn't let their guard down until both schemers were dealt with but at least there was an obtainable goal within sight. Killing Dumbledore while he was still perceived as the "Leader of the Light" would just cause the same problems they had fled from to happen again so for now the old goat would get to live and they would instead target his reputation.


	25. Laying the Groundwork

Arthur Weasley and Sirius Black were being escorted into the muggle world accompanied by the Dan and Emma Granger. They hit up pawn shops, thrift stores, flea markets, estate and yard sales looking for diamonds in the rough. Most of the time something ended up at these places because there was something wrong with it. That could be anything from wearing out, scratched up, burned, torn, stained or dozens of other tiny flaws that magic could easily fix. They had already gone through Arthur's shed and repaired anything of value and recycling anything that wasn't.

Damaged goods were usually cheap and repairing them with magic was free. Some of these would be resold for profit others would go towards Wyllt Foundlings as Harry insisted each child held a strong sense of individuality and loudly opposed uniformed clothing and furniture for those under their care. Today's finds were mostly for the orphanage but there were a few catches that were worth reselling after a bit of restoration. They even purchased a few worn down vehicles that would be added to the Knight Bus fleet. Once Arthur and Sirius learned a bit more about what things sold for, had more experience haggling, and had a better grasp on muggle currency they would bring in more to be resold.

There next chore was to hit up a handful of sports bar and study the muggle sports so they could create a better variant of Quidditch. Centuries ago Quidditch had been made-up by a healer who wanted a consistent supply of injuries in order to train her apprentices. The rules were created on the spot as she genuinely didn't care who won or lost and wizards being the inherently lazy creatures they are didn't change anything because the sport was entertaining. The coven wanted them to create a variant that was both safer and better rounded instead of focusing on the seekers. Sirius rose to the challenge as he still needed a distraction from Moony's death.

The last task was borderline illegal if they were caught but that risk was negligible and there were laws protecting them providing they weren't noticed at the time. They stopped at every restaurant and fastfood place that smelled good and left a handful of elves to observe the kitchens and see how everything was made. It was technically trespassing and copyright violations but they wanted these types of establishments at the Pendragon Bazaar. The Statute of Secrecy prevented outright hiring muggles without magical relations otherwise the coven would have done just that but it did allow magicals to simply take ideas and innovations from muggles as long as they were left unharmed and uninformed. The coven couldn't exploit this loophole as they had all but renounced their magical citizenship but the others brought in were free to take full advantage of the laws. Ironically, the law came about because a wizard at one point saw a muggle innovation but didn't understand it. He couldn't ask the maker for a magical equivalent or install it in his magical home as he had no magical relations so instead had been forced to use legilimency on him in order to understand it and bring it into the wizarding world. It was designed to bring about the next Hogwarts Express and yet they would be using it just to have a magical McDonalds. The coven was incredible ambitious as the Pendragon Bazaar had a layout for eighty different food establishments. Twenty five relatively inexpensive fast food, twenty five normal restaurants, twenty five higher end places, and five top-notch world class level dining.

Back at home Ted Tonks, Lily Potter, and Pandora Lovegood were practically tearing their hair out as they helped with du Lac Center of Learning. This year was simple as everyone starting the same year, roughly a quarter managed to get a head start on next year, eight managed to finish their second year studies, and one somehow put a serious dent in his third year work. Next year would be even harder as would the following years until it eventually starts to even out in difficulty. This was meant to be a twelve year curriculum and at the rate some students were going they could expect a decent amount to finish in half that time. The coven hated rushing some of this as you were less likely to retain it but it had to be done for those who had already missed years on account of their age. Thanks to Ministry regulations they couldn't have official classes on any magical subjects when Hogwarts was in session so most of the year du Lac was a large study group without a set schedule an overworked teaching staff each trying to help a hundred different students that were at a hundred different places in their studies with a hundred different priorities on what to focus on..

A graduate of du Lac would be prepared for and certified in both the magical and mundane world. Twelve years of twenty four different classes. Each class had a custom book for every two years thus the school had one hundred forty four different tomes just as a base line. Xeno eagerly loaned the coven his printing press in order to make enough copies for all of the students. They also had several libraries worth of books on all manner of subjects including fiction though the coven had gone through and removed anything that hadn't been published yet. The books covering mundane subjects were free to checkout regardless of where you lived but sadly the books on magic had to stay at the school for now due to the Trace, unless you were a resident of Le Fay Lodgings causing more than one child to beg their parents to move. The coven didn't want to be held responsible when alarms at the Ministry started going off. They hadn't curried enough favors or influence just yet to attempt and make a move against the Trace. In theory it was a fine idea, in practice it did nothing more than limit the amount of training a muggleborn can receive during those formative years. They didn't want to scrap it entirely but instead rework it in to something more efficient and less discriminatory.

Pandora and Lily were both registered as on call substitutes because they were capable of providing the necessary instructions in multiple classes though in Lily's case it better be an emergency as she had three small children to dote on and she didn't like leaving them with just the elves for too long. James was still on the aurors but managed to get himself and Alice assigned as part of the task force that guarded du Lac while Voldemort was still on the loose. Enough squibs and muggleborns located in one place was seen as a likely target so Crouch had arranged a temporary security force for the school. Whether as a publicity stunt or out of genuine concern they didn't know and didn't care as the coven had already cleared the auror force of Voldemort's infiltrators and they knew most of Dumbledore's spies thus were capable of keeping the old headmaster at a safe distance.

They didn't want to bring in any of the Hogwarts staff just yet as the coven wanted the school to already have an established way of doing things before Dumbledore could send someone in and try to change it. The coven had a handful of names in mind that they would reach out to in four or five years as many of the Hogwarts staff were quite competent in their given fields. Future knowledge combined with use of legilimency had already caught three would be spies when hiring instructors and they had no intention of letting him control any aspect of du Lac let alone when it was most vulnerable and still in going through infancy.


End file.
